what's causing the green water?

[ganowicki]

Thanks for the advice. I got him to walk me through a daily routine and I think the first problem is that he is feeding the fish way too much and next, His lights are on about 16 hours a day (NO power glo bulbs). I am going to turn off his lights for a couple of days, run some phosphate remover for a day and see where that leads us.

[StirCrazy]

Doh.. didn't see the other thread.. sorry for being the 4th hijacker LOL

Steve

[Aquattro]

Originally Posted by StirCrazy

Hmm, if you guys could get me the name of this "freshwater" carbon I would be interested in reading about it as I personaly in my 20+ years of freshwater fish do not recall seeing a "freshwater" only carbon.. what I have seen is "fine for use in freshwater and saltwater"

Steve

Hey, take this to the FW SW carbon thread, you hijacker!!

[Van down by the river]

To Mikey_918, Yes you are correct he shouldn't do water changes BEFORE treatment, but read the qoute again.

you may need to add temporary airstones or do additional water changes as the possible initial mass die off of the algae could cause low oxygen, killing your fish

If the algae content is very dense, the algae competes with the fish for oxygen. This can also cause PH swings (more of an issue in ponds). If he were to use an Algacide, or a good uv, there is a possibility that when all the algae die in a short time period it can cause problems. A bacterial bloom feeding on the dead algae again compete for oxygen. This is usually not a concern if it is a mild algae bloom.

Of course if you run a UV all the time and there is only minor algae within the aquarium this situation will never arise.

I would strongly recommend against the use of any algacides, cure the cause, not the effect.

Good luck ganowicki, overfeeding I find is almost always at the root or part of the most water quality problems.

[Don E]

I had a terrible greenwater problem with my first tank. Tried carbon, tried phosphate sponge, even tried rotifers which are supposed to be able to eliminate an entire pond of greenwater in days, but nothing worked. It went on for two months. Finally, as a last resort, I did a 100% water change, which in retrospect was a little too radical...

Anyway I discovered that I had had a couple of turbo snails die and foul the water, and the nitrate spike caused the green water. The spike never registered on my tests as the nitrate was converted to very aggressive phytoplankton instantly.

After the water change, no more problem. But the water change killed a couple of my inhabitants.

I did some reading after that- apparently with a huge spike in your nitrogen cycle, you can get the greenwater before the spike really registers.

[ganowicki]

green water has disapeared I believe it was from the overfeeding. Thanks for everything