Seachem Clarity is a product that will help your fish tank become clearer. If you don’t think that the product is working as intended in your aquarium, then you can take a look at this troubleshooting guide at Aquarium Blueprints to see what you can do.
Quick Summary
If Seachem Clarity doesn’t seem to be working for your cloudy fish tank after several hours, then you might want to add polishing filter pads and/or activated carbon to your aquarium filter.
If you already have these media types in your filtration, then you can replace them with new sets to see if doing so will help make the tank water look clearer.
Doing daily water changes and then adding Clarity to your fish tank should also help in getting rid of the cloudiness in your aquarium.
What to do when Seachem Clarity isn’t working as intended
1. The first step we recommend taking, if this product doesn’t appear to be working, is to simply wait.
For the uninformed, Seachem Clarity is a flocculant that will bind small, free-floating particles in your tank water. This process will actually make your fish tank look cloudier initially until your mechanical filtration removes the clumps from the water column.
Therefore, we suggest waiting for a couple of hours to see if your tank water becomes clearer.
2. If your tank water appears to be clearer than before but still remains somewhat cloudy, then you can keep dosing Clarity in your aquarium every 24 hours until it becomes crystal clear.
3. If Clarity doesn’t seem to help remove the cloudiness in your aquarium, then we recommend that you add polishing filter pads to the mechanical filtration compartment of your filter.
Filter pads do a much better job at trapping small particles from the tank water when compared to sponges.
4. You may also want to consider adding activated carbon to the chemical filtration compartment. Carbon features microscopic pores that will trap the free-floating small particles in the water column.
5. If you already have polishing filter pads and/or activated carbon in your tank, then you may want to consider replacing them with new sets.
This is due to the fact that the filter pads and carbon will get clogged up over time, which makes then less effective when it comes to trapping small particles.
6. Doing small water changes daily should also help with clearing out your cloudy tank water.
To do so effectively with Seachem Clarity, we recommend that you take the following steps:
- Start by removing water from your fish tank. We recommend swapping out no more than 20% of the water volume over a 24-hour period to prevent your pet fish from becoming too stressed.
- Next, you can add new water back into your tank. If you are refilling your aquarium with tap water, then make sure you add a water conditioner like Seachem’s Prime or Safe to remove chlorine and chloramine from the tap.
- After completing the water change, you can add Seachem Clarity in your tank water.
- Repeat these steps over and over again daily until the water in your aquarium becomes crystal clear.