Goldfish tank water yellow and stink

[wooty100]

Hi guys, I have a noob question that i cant find answers yet. So i sought pros help.

I have a 12l goldfish tank with 3 goldfishes(i know vol abit small but i bought them before i read up much) and a BOYU hang on filter.

Past few days was good and i 50% water change every 3days approx. I added a small pinch of b.bacteria to speed things up. Filter has not been clean for 1.5wks.

Today suddenly outbreak of something in the tank and water turns cloudy with yellow tinge. Water excrete a pungent smell and foul my area quite abit. My filter was found to be clogged with smug and i took the whole thing out to wash. Partial change 50% twice.

Is it because my cycling process is incomplete and fish waste was unable to break down? Or what happen?

[BFG]

Sound like bacteria bloom. When did you start this tank?

[Urban Aquaria]

Yeah, 12 liter is way to small for 3 goldfishes (even the small baby ones), they produce so much waste it'll overwhelm the tank very quickly... the only reason why goldfishes can tolerate such water conditions is because they are really hardy.

Any driftwood in the tank? That could be leaching tannins and making the water yellow. If not, then its probably bacterial bloom with extremely high organic waste levels in the water (hence the stinky smell)... could even be high concentration of pee from the fishes making the small water volume yellow (just kidding).

[wooty100]

I started with a small kids tank, those with a handle. Then when i got more serious i upgrade to this 12l tank and got 2 more goldfishes. Approx 2 mths since .

My method of cleaning the tank has stablise at 50% water changes every 2 to 3 days. I have 1 otto and one more bottom feeder which i forgot the name.

Will uograding my filter works better?

[wooty100]

My tank is not planted and bear without any wood and stuffs

[Urban Aquaria]

Upgrading your filter will help, though its still limited by the small water volume... you'll still need to do very frequent water changes to keep the water conditions healthy (maybe even daily water changes). The goldfishes will eventually grow alot larger too, so its best to house them in a much larger tank with greater water volume.

The cloudy tinted water and stinky smell is already an alarming sign that the bio-load has far exceeded the tank's holding capacity, so you should take bigger steps to solve it.

[wooty100]

I was quite shocked at the changes too. Guess i have to make a friendly trip down to clementi to get new filters.

[ahpui6]

I strongly urge for a larger tank and better filtration system for your goldfish. Their bioload can get pretty worrying and in the long run, a larger tank would defintely be beneficial for both the fishes and yourself. You would save some time from having to do water change as frequent as now.

[BFG]

Wooty100, if you're seriously interested to keep the fishes long term, get a larger tank, make it a 1 time purchase. Before doing that, think about how many goldfish you may want to purchase. Also in youtube, there is a nice video about goldfish, just type in A Layout for fancy goldfish in the search box.

[wooty100]

Ya thanks for all input. I jus got an gem slim L hangon filter to assist for time being. Presently unable to commit to a bigger tank. Probably will give away fishes if they still wont improve.

Im doing daily water changes for now to get rid of waste n stuffs.

[rakurime]

I'm using GEX slim S (HOB) filter for my 16Litres GEX deskboy (gold fish tank), with river gravels, 1 x anubias nana petite tied on lava rock, few strands of c.becketti tied on rock, complete the setup with a sponge filter for better aeration and my HOB always on the max flow speed, starting it was tough on controlling the water as it gets dirty very easily until i found out why.

Overfeeding!!

now i have 2 medium size Oranda red cap (about 2.5-3inch) and 2 small size ranchu (about 1.5inch big) yet the water is constantly clear as i only feed once a day, soak their pellets in a cup until it got soften before feeding, each fish eat about 4-5 pellets.


i used to do a 50-60% WC every 3-4 days, but now i only do a 60% once a week (approximately once every 7 days) and siphoning the waste from the gravel really can clean up lots of unwanted stuffs.