New fish tank, no fish yet, water is cloudy?
So my boyfriend bought me that fish tank for those neon fish and the lady told us to wait 24 hours to buy fish, so we did but my boyfriend hasn’t had to the time to take me to get the fishies so there has been no fish in it for 5 days now. My tank is cloudy now and on the top it looks like i took a paint brush I used with black paint and dipped it in there, that is what the water looks like. The top of the water kind of looks oily and i stuck my finger in there and when i pulled it out it had blackish water on it. No fish at all in there, so why is it doing that? I know you’re supposed to wash the gravel and stuff but my boyfriend did it.. and he said he put the gravel in the tank, filled it halfway with water and drained the water out to clean the gravel. Could that be why? What should I do? I don’t want to go and buy my little fishies and they die because of this blackish funky water! Help 
?
Yes, i have a filter, the tank came with all of that stuff
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the gravel should have been washed outside of the tank.
Do you have a filter for the tank?
If you don’t have a filter, then you should get one!!
Without the filter, water gets dirst VERY quickly, even if there aren’t any fish in the tank.
So, I would recommend going to your local pet store and installing a filter in your tank.
Hope this helped!!!
Peace and Love,
Katie <3
Before running the filter did you wash the media inside it? maybe this could be carbon floating around in your tank,it should however clear in a couple of days.
typically when you start a tank…fish or not…your water can often times appear cloudy. its all a part of the water cycle for fish tanks. the black stuff could be coming from your carbon. try rinsing things again. then set it up again and add in a few fish flakes so you can get your water cycle going and then u can get your fishes. good luck!
The gravel you buy is typically pretty dirty, so yeah, it could be that, or the carbon in the filter.
Neither of those things is going to harm your fish, and the cloudiness should settle; keep the filter running.
But it’s good that you waited more than 24 hours – that is not enough time.
If you’re not going to ‘cycle’ the tank fully before adding fish, start off with a few fish only, or you may get an excess of waste products before the bacteria that break them down in your tank have had a chance to multiply. These waste products (ammonia, nitrite,…) can harm or kill fish at high levels.