tank has a green cloudy haze; Please help

The friendliest place on the web for anyone with an interest in aquariums or fish keeping!
If you have answers, please help by responding to the unanswered posts.

gali

Aquarium Advice Newbie
Joined
Nov 5, 2002
Messages
3
I have a 75 gallon tank with 7 good sized fish and have had it up and running now for about six months and all of a sudden I have a real bad problem with it being cloudy. I have changed the water and cleaned my filters real good, but it hasn't gotten any better. It hasn't seemed to affect my fish at all, though. Should I be worried? Can anybody suggest something to fix it? :(
 
I've read in the past that sometimes, a tank will go through a ' random ' cloudy phase and that this is rarely anything to worry about, although this is usually at the beginning. You also have a large tank, which is in your advantage in some ways with regards to the cloud. Have you carried out tests - Ammonia / Nitrate / Nitrite etc ?
 
Is your tank recieving any sunlight? It sounds like it might be algae. If so, just take it out of the light and the algae will die...eventually.
 
Green haze is called green water, I am currently battling it also. Grrrrrr. I have not found an easy answer at this point.

Like jason said, any sunlight? How much light do you have on this tank? How long are the lights on each day?
 
Another solution to an algae bloom is to reduce the nutrient entering the tank. Reduce the number of feedings per day and the amount fed per feeding. If your using Tap water, you might consider useing a remineralized RO water, check your phosphates, a phosphate removing media may help. Do some waterchanges with some clean nutrient free water, introduction of live plants may or may not help. For a quick temporary solution, all of the water clarifiers on the market will help your filer putt the algae out of the water. Make sure you are cleaning your filters at least weekly.
 
:) Thanks for the replies. I am actually quite new to the whole aquarium thing. I just found a deal on the tank that I couldn't pass up or I would have probably started a little smaller. The light tips are pretty useful. I normally keep my light on all the time, but the tank does not get any direct sunlight, due to it's location. As for the water tests I really don't know where to get them or what to look for so any suggestions on which ones to purchase would also be greatly appreciated. I do have one that I got from a friend to test the ph but that was all I was suggested to use. It doesn't really help me, though, cause it's so vague. A list of things I need to check and how often would help alot.

Thanks again for your Help.
 
Lighting is your biggest problem. The lights should only be on 8-12 hours a day. To help this problem I would suggest turning you lights off for a couple of days, then slowly build up the lighting. Start with the lights on for maybe 6 hours and each day add an hour to build up the time to approx 10 hours a day. I also suggest that you go out to your local fish store and buy Ph, Nitrate, Nitrite and ammonia test kits and check your levels.
 
:p So far turning the light is working. Thanks guys. I'll try and keep you posted.
 
Glad to hear its working. My tank was so bad I turned off the lights and covered it with a blanket for 5 days, so zero light could get in. Glad to say, it worked! Did a large wter change before the blackout too, to reduce dead algae floating around.
 
Re: algae

nikki said:
can you swich off your tank completely for a couple od days without disturbing the fish?

You can turn the lights off for a period of time. Not exactly the same as switching off the tank entierly.

Turning off a filter and letting it sit idle with water in it can cause big problems when it turns back on.
 
Just a thought - do you put cucumber in the tank? If the fish don't eat it you'll have green cloudy water in a couple of days.
 
Back
Top Bottom