Expert: Christy - 10/19/2008

Question
I just cleaned my 30 gal fish tank about aweek ago. I just rinsed it real well. Filled it back up with water, and new filter. Now my tank is having already starting to get cloudy and has a bad odor.What did I do wrong? I also have a turtle in it. Do that have anything to do with it? Should I put the turtle somewhere else? Should I clean it again? If so how often do I have to clean?
Rellita

Answer
Hi Rellita
I don't have any experience with turtles.  If this is strictly a turtle tank, then I would suggest posting your question in the reptile section, I'm sure there's experts there with turtle experience. I dont' know a thing about keeping a tank clean with turtles, if it's supposed to be cycled, etc. etc....

If there's fish in the tank, well....turtles and fish usually aren't a good combo.  Turtles eat fish.  So, if that's the case, I would say it's probably best moving the turtle to it's own tank.  When you have a fish tank with fish, you don't ever want to completely break down the tank and clean it.  ALl fish tanks go through what's called the cycle process, see this link for more info on that:

http://freshaquarium.about.com/cs/biologicalcycle/a/nitrogencycle.htm

And when you break it down to clean it, you basically kill off all the beneficial bacteria in the tank.  So, that's what the cloudy water and odor is from, it's the ammonia building up and the beneficial bacteria starting to colonize in the tank.  
What you'll need to do is daily water changes until the tank finishes cycling, which can take anywhere from 6-12 weeks.  I would also suggest picking up a good test kit to test the ammonia, nitrite, and nitrate levels.  Again, that's for a tank with fish in it.

Hope that helps and let me know if you have more questions.

Christy