water is looking greenish

[pandafishowner]

I set up my 29 gallon tank on Feb 20th. I originally had a 10 gallon. When I set up the tank, I used all 10 gallons from the original, and added about 10 gallons of new conditioned water. I had 6 guppies in my original 10 gallon tank. The day I set up the tank I had bought 1 cory cat. A few days later I grabbed 3 more cory cats. I waited til around the 1st to buy 4 cardinal tetras. Right now, my fish count is 6 guppies, 4 cory cats, 7 cardinals and a pleco I just bought. I had a pretty bad case of algae. I'm not sure why or how. Friday afternoon I did a complete cleaning in my tank. I took out all the decorations, all the rocks (the big gem looking ones, there isn't any gravel right now but was planning on getting the pebble looking stuff on my next payday) and washed it all down. I did about a 5-7 gallon water change hoping it would help my tank look not too green for water. I cleaned the inside walls with a glass cleaning sponge? I don't know how to describe it. It's a white sponge like thing, blue handle? Anyway, I was hoping that would make a difference. I added the half a capful of water conditioner to the water (it says one capful per 10 gallons). For awhile, my tank looked clear, but now it looks green again. I can take a picture if anyone wants to see it, it's much worse from the sides. I haven't been overfeeding either. I've been careful to only use about 10 floating fish pellets twice a day. I have algae wafers for the cories, but I only give one every other day as I was told. My pleco was automatically cleaning my tank as soon as he was aclimated and put into the tank.

Any idea what's wrong? I've been doing amonia tests every day, it says I have none. I did nitrate and nitrite tests today, none. Ph is around 7.2 which is within the ok range. The temp is around 76-78 degrees just like always.

Help? :(

[Invigor]

try running some carbon, if that doesn't help, try a phosphate sponge, if that doens't work, wrap your tank up in a black garbage bag and leave it for 3-5 days wihtout any light :D

[pandafishowner]

do I put the carbon inside the filter?

[G1GY]

do I put the carbon inside the filter?

That's the easiest way, but you can put it right in the tank in a high flow area also. :)

[pandafishowner]

thanks :) I have a Penguin Bio-Wheel filter, the space at the back is big enough for a little bag of carbon. Just gotta wait til tomorrow and see if I can get to a store to buy some :) Thanks for the suggestions.

[j-roc]

Is your tank in contact with sunlight? If so that would be the cause of your green water.

[j83]

Sounds like you have an algae bloom. I had one back when I had a freshwater set-up and the only way I could get rid of it was to take the whole tank apart and give everything a damn good scrubbing. Hopefully you won't have to do this but you have to catch it early! Like previous people have said - try carbon and a phosphate sponge. Good luck!

Jay

[pandafishowner]

j-roc, in answer to your question, the tank isn't in contact with sunlight much at all, and never in direct sunlight. I live in a basement suite. The tank is in my kitchen along the hallway wall, right in front of my bedroom door. My door is kept closed because of my daughter, and the kitchen doesn't get much light at all from the window. Pretty much the only light my tank gets is from the tank light itself.

j83, the complete scrubbing is almost exactly what I did. I took everything out (rocks, decorations, etc) and scrubbed down the walls of the tank with that sponge cleaner. I soaked the rocks in boiling water for awhile (I don't have gravel as I said) and I scrubbed the decorations down with a toothbrush I bought for the job.

Thanks for the help :)

[pandafishowner]

here are 2 tank shots. one was taken with me standing at the kitchen door. the other was in front of the tank.

from kitchen door
http://i3.photobucket.com/albums/y53/onebunnnywuv/tank.jpg

from in front
http://i3.photobucket.com/albums/y53/onebunnnywuv/tank2.jpg

[doublette]

That doesn't look too bad, I've been through much worse! You should be able to get rid of it by doing the tank black out as suggested by Invigor. Make sure absolutely no light gets into the tank for that period of time. After that if you find it started to turn green again, try adding some plants to out-compete the algae for the nutrients in the water.

[pandafishowner]

i got a bag of carbon delivered today :) i'll try it and see if it helps in the next few days. if not i'll try the garbage bags over the tank.

[lil_clownfish13]

Or you can try a chemical product called Green-X or Algae Destroyer. Those will kill off any algae and/or plants in the tank. I use it in my boyfriends parents koi tank because they get direct sunlight on the tank...works wonders, especially for green water.

i was also going to mention... why dont you get some more gravel? it will help with your water quality stability if you give nitrifying bacteria more room to grow

jm2c

[pandafishowner]

actually, i don't have any gravel at all. i have the big gemstone rocks. i'm slowly increasing the amount of them. when i had gravel in my big tank, everytime i used the vaccuum cleaner, i got huge huge amonia spikes and my fish would die. i decided i'm not going to use gravel at all. i was thinking of buying these large rock like things at the store, but the bag was $15 for a 3lb. no way did I want to spend that much on such a little bag. i haven't had any amonia problems, my tank isn't in direct sunlight, and my entire kitchen gets very little light at any time of day. i'll buy some plants later after i've dealt with this algae problem (and of course on a payday), but i'm going to avoid gravel :)

[pandafishowner]

sorry, also wanted to add: i can now see from one end of my tank to the other. it's still green, but it seems to be clearing at least a little :D

[lil_clownfish13]

the gravel should only cause ammonia spikes if your not changing your water enough or the gravel is not disturbed... but you'd have to have a pretty high bioload...

anyhow, plants don't make much of a difference anyhow... live or fake--
good luck

[pandafishowner]

when i had the 10g set up, I was doing weekly water changes of between 25-30% and if it needed a change during the week i did that. i always made sure my water perameters were perfect. since upgrading to the 29g andnot having any gravel, the only problem i'd had it the algae. i always scrubbed down the inside of the tank with a tank cleaning sponge and I vaccuumed through every little bit of gravel there was when i used it. :)

[lil_clownfish13]

hmm...well thats different... just curious to me...

:) good luck with the algae!!

[pandafishowner]

thanks :) it's clearing up lots since stinky brought me a bag of carbon :D hopefully it'll clear up enough that i can show off my pretty fishies later