disgusting tank help

[Alcemistnv]

So, I did a 50% change of the 5 gallon in hopes of removing the dividers (only for now, they will go.back once I get the email from my school)

And it was dirttyyyyy. There were so many little things floating in the water (poop, fuzzies, food, etc.) And I don't know why the filter wasn't helping. There was also this brown moss like thing on the skull decor.

I know that I'm not supposed to do a 100% chance because it will kill off the harmful bacteria, but I can't imagine keeping my fish in that.... also, I can't seem to baffle the filter right, so its currently encased in a red solo cup with two small cut outs for water to go through.

Advice?

[shellieca]

Do you vacuum the tank weekly? If your filter cartridge is brown then its doing its job, it's not going to suck up all the solid waste. Each week I vacuum my 10g tank that has 1 Betta & 1 Snail, the removed water is nasty brown because of all the gunk that gets vacuumed up. I push the vac down into the gravel until it touchs the bottom of the aquarium & leave it there until the water is clear in the vac tube. Your aquarium is small so syphoning the water out probably doesn't take long; my suggestion is to do one half of the tank each each. If you have algae of some type growing on your decos just wipe it off, things submerged in water 24/7 usually will get some slime on them. Your tank is big enough that you could actually add a Mystery (Apple) Snail which will help with some of the algae.

[Alcemistnv]

I actually don't vacumn. I use marbles so I simply remove a good chunk of them and clean them, and then I use a cup to remove half the water, or until I see its fairly clean, and then put water back in. And the cartridge isn't brown at all, just grey.

Pudge actually just jumped the one divider I had in the tank while i was waiting for a response. Buddha luckily was in another tank, but the two tanks right next to each other so Buddha started going nuts. I removed the divider for.now, but I'm going to do a 50% change for Pudge laster, and then a full one for Buddha

[shellieca]

Originally Posted by Alcemistnv

I actually don't vacumn. I use marbles so I simply remove a good chunk of them and clean them, and then I use a cup to remove half the water, or until I see its fairly clean, and then put water back in. And the cartridge isn't brown at all, just grey.

Pudge actually just jumped the one divider I had in the tank while i was waiting for a response. Buddha luckily was in another tank, but the two tanks right next to each other so Buddha started going nuts. I removed the divider for.now, but I'm going to do a 50% change for Pudge laster, and then a full one for Buddha

You can buy a syphon/vac relatively cheap, they make tank cleaning quicker & easier, IMO. Takes a couple of times to kind of get the hang of it but once you do I think you'll like it. They vac up a lot of gunk. All the solids you're not able to get from cupping the water out settles back to the bottom of the tank & just keeps adding up.