I screwed up!

[russianaquarium]

Awesome, ya its a new cycled tank, I took almost 20 gallons out of the 30 and put it into the 60, and used same filter media, i think that im having a bacteria and algae spike at the same time. Will this harm my fish? THanks

 

[Ingy]

Green water is not harmful to the fish as it's a natural biological process happening. Green water has one major concern tho. It's ugly.
On the other hand it means algae is consuming all the nitrogens (from ammonia to nitrate) in a natural and safe manner which is why your levels are at zero.
Reducing your bio load is the first step to the cure. But it's not always possible if you don't want to get rid of the fish.
So the next option to get rid of green water is to replace that process with another natural process in biological filtration. Plants. You relatively strong lighting is more than your few java ferns need and is boosting the algae bloom.
As your plants grow tho they should take over as the major consumer of nitrogens and that will eliminate the algae blooms over time. To help tho, try lowering your pH level as algae liked less acidic water.
But as green water is a symptom not a cause, do not try to directly eliminate it. That will just cause ammonia and nitrate issues as the algae dies and decays and also stops consuming nitrates. UV filters are a horrible horrible idea because of that.
CO2 dosing is a good option to change the water chemistry to better support plants and less optimal for algae. Peat is another option.

 

[russianaquarium]

Alright could you elaborate on that... so your saying i should leave the lights on? They are off right now because thats what others told me, and I used to do Co2 Dosing until this happened so I thought Co2 supports algae growth. I will prob get rid of 4 fish today, and what exactly am I suppose to do? Water changes. And i have many plants, like sword plant, java moss, java fern, banana plant, crypt parva, dwarf sag, some pink plant. What should I do? Thanks

 

[TMaier]

I think what Ingy is saying is deal with the cause first and not the physical green water.

If you reduce the nutrients - fish waste and nitrate rich water that will help.

If you increase the plants they will out compete the algae and use more of the nutrients. Co2 will help the plants use even more.

Reduce your lighting period. Plants will adjust but the algae not as well.

Splitting the lights into 3hr intervals separated by an hour or more.

The risk with a UV sterilizer is killing the algae could cause an ammonia spike if it happens too much too fast and your biological filter cannot handle it.

 

[russianaquarium]

Awesome thanks I hope this helps.

 

[russianaquarium]

Alright I think I have a problem, its still here and the problem isn't getting better. So I turned off the light for like 3-5 days turned it on for like a couple hours day 3 to feed fish and kept it off for 2 more days then did 50% water change looks much clearer but after keeping the light on i can see it getting greener by the hour. I added 1/4 pound of carbon into the filter because fish store told me to do so. I got rid of a lot of fish have like 9 fish in 60 gallon left had around 20 in begining. I also added more plants to absorb more nutrients. I only have about 1.4 watts per gallon, what the heck. 2x13 inch stock marineland leds and 2 48 inch 6500K t8s with 2750 lumens each, is it too much lumens? They are normal 6500K t8s from hardware store. Thanks this green water is killing me.

 

[flchamp89]

Have you done daily wc?

 

[russianaquarium]

I was told not to do daily water changes because it may only make matters worse, i believe i have a bacteria/algae bloom, my next option in to drain 100% of the water and start over , is this safe for the fish? to let them live in a 20 gallon for a week? how would i restart? Thanks

 

[Brookster123]

I was told not to do daily water changes because it may only make matters worse, i believe i have a bacteria/algae bloom, my next option in to drain 100% of the water and start over , is this safe for the fish? to let them live in a 20 gallon for a week? how would i restart? Thanks

By who? Not us??

 

[TMaier]

Water changes will reduce the nutrients in the water that are feeding the algae.

 

[russianaquarium]

I talked to 15 different people in the last month about this, and all the things they told me I tried and clearly nothing worked, so im done might as well start over and maybe reduce the hours of light I have and not overstock it anymore and feed em less. I usually feed 2 times a day in morning and at night, is this too much? Thanks And how many hours of light?

 

[Brookster123]

Did you try a uv sterilizer?

 

[flchamp89]

Uv works....but often daily wc will pull out enough spores.

 

[toolman]

I hadn't followed this thread, but as I read through it one thing became clear to me. 12 different members did their best to help you, everyone gave advice according to their experiences. Three had less than 100 posts on the forum, they gave good advice, but 9 long-time members with a combined ~40,000 post also responded, giving good advice as well. All but one of the long time members said do water changes, let me add again EVERYONE gave good advice based on their experiences.

All advice was good, but you followed the advice from one with 158 posts. It was good honest advice that worked for them, but you ignored everyone else. You said you talked to over 15 people so evidently one of the 3+ people from off this forum instructed you to not do water changes during your blackout.

Why ask for advice here and then listen to someone off forum (lfs?) whose advice you questioned early in the thread?

Not trying to be overly critical but everyones here is trying to help.... Take their advice! I've seen this all to often lately on this forum, if an original poster doesn't like the advice they ignore it.

This infuriates me when they then say nothing worked, sorry if this sounds rude I don't intend to be.

Will get off my soapbox now.....

OP if your still reading this do water changes to remove nutrients, then reduce your light.

 

[russianaquarium]

Yes i tried all that, i had a black out for the past week and did 3 50% water changes.. im tired of dragging buckets up and down the stairs for 2 hours straight. And the reason I didn't listen to those 11 people is because they tell me to get a UV sterilizer and I clearly said I don't have the money for that... its like 100 dollars im a college kid in extreme dept and can't go out spending money I don't have right? So I did do the water changes, I started adding co2, i reduced the light, I reduced feeding to once every 2 days, what did I not obey? Thanks

 

[toolman]

I was told not to do daily water changes because it may only make matters worse, i believe i have a bacteria/algae bloom, my next option in to drain 100% of the water and start over , is this safe for the fish? to let them live in a 20 gallon for a week? how would i restart? Thanks

Sorry if I seemed harsh, not my intent. Maybe we don't always understand the advice given or give stated advice clear enough to get point across.

 

[flchamp89]

You did daily 50 pwc for how long?

 

[toolman]

I didn't take it that way, my take on their advice was to keep up the water changes after the blackout. A combined reduction in light and nutrients would result in the algae dyeing. Several of them even said uv would work, but without it water changes was how it was done when uv unavailable.

Sorry about the distance to water source but water changes and reduced light will do it eventually.
Water changes are just a part of the hobby, I feel your pain I have a 55 gallon tank upstairs myself.

 

[Brookster123]

Well... maybe you should have listened to the masses telling you to flush the tank.. money can't buy happiness but it can certainly buy a healthy aquarium.. John Lennon never said that By the way..

 

[flchamp89]

It can buy me boat it can buy me a yeti 110 iced down with some silver bullets