Green Water will not go away...

[nolimit06]

Hey guys and gals I have a 30 gallon and I have been battling green water for over 2 months and I have tried everything from algae tabs, new filters and the extreme complete drain and cleaning. This weekend I did a 72 hour blackout on the tank and it seemed to help a good bit so I did a 50% water change and recovered the tank because with the light off there is still a bad green tint in the water.

The tank location is not near any windows or direct sunlight and I am losing hope on what else to do. My water quality is fine and I have had it tested by two separate shops and its right in spec. If you guys can point me in the right direction I would greatly appreciate it!

 

[Mumma.of.two]

What your lighting and how long is it on each day?

 

[maestromad]

I had a similar issue and was doing pwc every other day, same thing green water removers wouldn't work etc.. Then one day it just disappeared. Keep up with it and maybe have a look at you lighting schedule I had to drop mine a couple of hours. Good luck.

 

[Alkane]

Heya, green water is frustrating isn't it?

The best thing to do is trouble shoot the cause, just treating symptoms may only give temporary results.

A couple of things it could be:

-photo period is too long (your lights should generally be on 8-10 hours/day, if you dont have a timer you can buy one for pretty cheap. Timers are worth the $10.00)

-light intensity & spectrum

-expired/faulty test kits

-phosphates in your tap water

-expired bulbs (typically change yearly)

If you can't figure out the cause you can always try some low light fast growing plants to compete with the algae.

Good Luck!

 

[nolimit06]

Thanks for the replies, the light is usually on less that 8 hours a day. The light is a Aqueon 8,000k Full Spectrum Daylight. As for plants what do you recommend? My substrate is about a inch of aquarium gravel and I would need something low maintenance as I am disabled at the moment and can not be on my feet much and needs to be cheap lol.

Also what kind of light is cheap but good quality that will bring vibrancy to the tank without causing algae problems?

 

[Alkane]

The easiest would probably be a floating plant and you can probably get some from this site for free (pay shipping) or a couple dollars. There are several types you may want to goggle low light floating plants to see some pictures.

Probably the cheapest and fastest grower would be duckweed, but some people find it annoying. I enjoy duckweed in some of my smaller tanks.

There is also frogbit, pennywort, hornwort, water velvet...ect. try a google search on low light floating plants and look at some pictures.

 

[nolimit06]

Thanks for the recommendations on plants. Any tips on good lighting? If I go with low light plants do I need anything extra to keep them alive?

 

[Typow07]

I've had the same problem with my 55g. Two months of everything I could think of, daily water changes, blackouts, turning the light duration down. Last week I spent a little money ($70) at petco for a 24watt uv light. The aquarium cleared up in a week. I looked the light I bought up online and I've seen it as cheap as $50 lol. If you have the cash that would be in my opinion a final fix.

 

[nolimit06]

I've had the same problem with my 55g. Two months of everything I could think of, daily water changes, blackouts, turning the light duration down. Last week I spent a little money ($70) at petco for a 24watt uv light. The aquarium cleared up in a week. I looked the light I bought up online and I've seen it as cheap as $50 lol. If you have the cash that would be in my opinion a final fix.

Well I have had them blacked out since Monday after the water change and things are looking good. The water is milky but not green, we are going to do a 30% wc tomorrow and see what happens.

 

[Typow07]

The blacking out is a good step in my opinion. My tank did not show any progress after over 72 hours in darkness, yours has it sounds like. I also learned that during the day when i was not home for several hours the sun came perfectly in my window to bake on the right half of my tank. Im sure that had alot to do with the algae... i put up sun blacking out curtains lol

 

[Typow07]

Heres my planted 55 less than a week after I installed the new uv light (on the left)

 

[Typow07]

Here is the tank on the 13th. Less than 24 hours after uv light install.

 

[nolimit06]

That looks like a good plan if all else fails but I don't have $70 bucks laying around lol. I'm out of work right now, got injured on the job so we are real tight at the moment but I will post a picture tomorrow after pwc.

 

[Alkane]

Thanks for the recommendations on plants. Any tips on good lighting? If I go with low light plants do I need anything extra to keep them alive?

http://www.aquariumadvice.com/forums/f24/floating-plants-for-low-light-low-tech-168265.html

There are several that should be fine under your current lights.

 

[nolimit06]

http://www.aquariumadvice.com/forums/f24/floating-plants-for-low-light-low-tech-168265.html

There are several that should be fine under your current lights.

Thanks for the link