cloudy water due to not enough mechanical filtration?

[Paul]

I have a 120 gallon tank with about 20 Malawi cichlids from 1-5 inches. I
find when I feed them (consisting of flake, pellets and brine shrimp, as
well as veges) the water will have alot of small suspended particles and the
water will go a bit cloudy. this does not clear for a few hours, and my
water is only every crystal clear if I have been away for the weekend.

I have a custom built trickle filter with approx 4 layers of course foam and
1 layer of artifical cotton matting. the pump empties the tank approx 4
times an hour if my calculations are correct. do you think this is enough
mechanical filtration? do you think if I got myself a canister filter it
would help? any thoughts appreciated.

[Dan J. S.]

"Paul" > wrote in message
...
> I have a 120 gallon tank with about 20 Malawi cichlids from 1-5 inches. I
> find when I feed them (consisting of flake, pellets and brine shrimp, as
> well as veges) the water will have alot of small suspended particles and
the
> water will go a bit cloudy. this does not clear for a few hours, and my
> water is only every crystal clear if I have been away for the weekend.
>
> I have a custom built trickle filter with approx 4 layers of course foam
and
> 1 layer of artifical cotton matting. the pump empties the tank approx 4
> times an hour if my calculations are correct. do you think this is enough
> mechanical filtration? do you think if I got myself a canister filter it
> would help? any thoughts appreciated.
>
>

Sometimes it's about how you position the intake and the output tubes. I
found that by playing with that, I get better circulation and more stuff
gets filtered out.