Ah, okay. Thank you all for the wonderful and informative advice! I really appreciate that! It did help me to make some definitive decisions about what I will be doing soon.

By the way, I looked at the "filter" again. It's a hawkeye 201 air pump. whew. a mistake.

Anyways. We did a half water change with room temperature water treated with AquaSafe water conditioner. The water looks much better than it did even though it's only been a week since it has last been vacuumed.