Algae in Water Column!

[fishyfishyswimswim]

I have algae clouding my water in by 40 gal breeder tank. I have tried an algae destryer to no avail. The tank has two plecos and some swordtails. It also has some seagrass in tiny pots filled with gravel. The grass is going nuts and sending out runners. All fish are healthy. I have two penguine 330's filtering the water. How can I clear up my water? And here's the deal: I just combined two 20 gals into the forty. One was crystal clear and the other had this same algae problem. I used most of the water from the clear tank, and none from the cloudy tank. But I did use the filter from the cloudy tank. All the plants were in the clear tank. Anyhow, within 5 days of combining the tanks, this algae is back. Any advice much appreciated.

[neilanh]

Welcome to the forum!

Are you referring to a green tint in your water?

Also, for future reference, in FW aquariums, maintaining the water doesn't have any value, it's the filtration media and surfaces for bacteria colonies that count.

[Purrbox]

A 3-5 day blackout (aquarium completely covered so no light gets in and no peeking) is probably your best bet for getting rid of it.

[Peyton]

I had green water problems for months on a tank before I finally got rid of it for good. It would get real cloudy then I would use my micron filter to clear up the water. Few days later it would come back. You need to find the source of the problem. I traced mine back to high nitrates. If you also have high nitrates even doing a blackout may not be enough. Do you have a nitrate test kit?