Cloudy water

[MSU Fan]

My 75g is starting to get cloudy. It has been cycled for about 2 months, and the cloudiness doesn't necessarily have a color to it yet. I am suspecting attack of the green water. I have seen some algae build up on my hardscape (which the pleco is lovin!). The cloudiness really didn't start until I added the co2.

As of last night, here is my set up and parameters:
75g
XP3 filter
Hydor ETH 300w heater (kept at 79 degrees)
CO2 injection
2x65w 10k CF bulbs
2x65w Actinic CF bulbs
PFS substrate

Ammonia - 0
Nitrite - 0
Nitrate - 0-5
PH - 6.4
KH - 3 degrees
GH - 7 degrees
Phosphates - 0-.5

Fish - many of various kinds (see sig)

Plants - moderately planted (most of the plants are recent, and the co2 is very new, so most of the growth has really just started). Dosing with liquid ferts (I will have to update this later, I can't remember the name) ~twice a week.

So here's where I am - i see 3 things that can cause my water to be cloudy...1. stirred up the PFS and now the water is cloudy, 2. Bacterial Bloom, 3. Algae Bloom. Since I haven't stirred the PFS too much recently and the tank has been cycled for 2 months, I am thinking algae...I have been reading on this and it seems to be caused by my Nitratehosphate imbalance, and that I need to dose nitrates to get a 10:1 ratio. That is well and good and will be done. So then what? Will the cloudiness go away on its own, or will this require a blackout? Any other help is appreciated

 

[rich311k]

You probably need to add some N. That low is asking for problems. Adding some K would be a good idea as well.

Green water can be tough to get rid of. Getting your ferts balanced you solve the problem before it gets out of hand. Otherwise you will need to blackout, diatom or UV it.

None of those methods will fix the underlying problem and it will keep returnig.

 

[MSU Fan]

Thanks Rich, but does the Green Water go away if the ferts get balanced? It makes sense, but then again...I am just concerned that I will need to blackout the tank even though I get my ferts in order.

 

[rich311k]

You may have to blackout it out anyway. You will need to figure out what is wrong to prevent its return.

 

[Alshain]

Since that particular form of algae is mostly free floating, enough water changes should remove it and keeping the water balances will keep it removed. Or at least thats what I would think, I've never battled this one myself.

 

[MSU Fan]

Thanks all...i got my work cut out for me either way!!!

 

[rich311k]

Once green water gets bad no amout of water changes will eliminate it. Trust me on that one.

I did discover having a hose on your cannister let go and pumping all you water into the basement while you are on vacation is a great way to get rid of it. Heck on the fish though.

 

[newfound77951]

Your tank sounds like it's going through exactly what my 55 did after about 6 weeks or so set up....it started just a little cloudy, i thought it was a bacterial bloom because I couldn't tell if it was white or green. Then one day I came home and WHAM.....it was REALLY green! I never really did figure out what caused it, just did a lot of water changes, kept a close eye on my levels, and finally got a diatom filter to clear it out. For about 3 weeks after using the diatom, it would start to get cloudy again, I'd filter every 4-5 days, then suddenly it stopped and for the past 4+ months I've had crystal clear water. Mine started (coincidentally or not) after I added PO4 and Excel for the first time, although i still add both, so not sure if either of these was to blame.

Fortunately the fish could have cared less and most of the plants did fine, except for a sword and some finicky high light plants (Didiplis primarily) that got a little melty. Good luck!

 

[MSU Fan]

so a further update. I checked just the PH, phosphates and nitrates tonight...

PH - 6.0
Phosphates - .5
Nitrates - 0

I also went to the store and picked up a stump remover (MSDS - 100% KNO3) and No-Salt. I didn't get the Fleet Enema. So I pulled up Chuck's Calc to figure out what I am supposed to dose to get things in some kind of order. After a very long time, I think that I got it...

For the Nitrates - I dose 1/4 tsp per 250ml, and put the entire 250ml into the tank - which should provide 2.5ppm per dosing - going to do 3 days a week. But I was just reading that I should be targeting 20ppm per week, so I will have to up that to somewhere between 1/2tsp and 3/4tsp per dose - 1/2 would provide ~15ppm per week, and 3/4tsp would be ~30ppm.

For the Potassium, I used No-Salt, which is I think is Potassium Chloride. Anyway, I dosed 3/4tsp per 250ml, which should render 7.5ppm per dose, 3x per week, or ~21ppm per week.

Phosphates - I guess I am going to have to dose this to 2ppm, or 3tbs per 250ml (use 5ml for dosing) at 3x per week to get ~2ppm per week.

Does this all make any sense, or I am just driving in neutral? TIA

EDIT:
oh, btw, the supplement I have been dosing with is called Formula F made by Aquarium Landscapes (https://ssl.perfora.net/www.aquariu...nid=1544ff911622953/shopdata/index.shopscript)

Do I even need this stuff??

 

[czcz]

MSU Fan, you're doing well. It's a good idea to do your calcs for 60gals instead of 75gals to account for displacement by substrate and stuff, but this is just picking hairs. On a couple calcs you're off by a a little per dose according to Chuck's Calc, but again picking hairs.

Your plan for nitrate dosing is good, but be aware your dumping the entire solution into the tank is like dry dosing, so it doesn't matter if you mix it in 250mL or a cup of water or whatever. I would suggest 1/2tsp of Stump Remover per dose to start.

Your plan for No-Salt is good. You're correct it is KCl.

What will be your source of phosphate? If you are using KH2PO4 instead of Fleet, you're adding around ~2ppm per 5mL dose with that solution. Personally I *love* this kind of dosing with high light, but you may want to only dilute 1.5TBL KH2PO4 into 250mL, then dose 5mL 3x a week, for a more reasonable ~1ppm PO4 per dose for your light.

"Formula F" looks like a decent Iron supplement, so you can use it. It does not appear to be comprehensive traces however, so you should consider something like Seachem Flourish, Tropica Plant Nutrition, or Plantex CSM+B. Your plants will tell you if you need more traces with your light, usually with yellow or pale new growth.

Good job! Good luck.

 

[MSU Fan]

Again, thanks everyone.

ok, I bought Fleet today...how much am I going to need to dose for the phospates to get to 1-2ppm?

Also, should I get Flourish or Flourish Trace? As I understand it, Flourish also contains Nitrates, Phosphates, and Potassium as well as trace elements. So won't that throw off all the calculations?

 

[czcz]

You should get Flourish. There's not enough Nitrates or Phosphates in Flourish to care about it; for example, even if you added about 0.5ppm Fe from Flourish (this is very high micronutrient dosing), you'd only add about 0.1ppm Nitrogen.

(edited to clarify and change "trace" to "micronutrient," to avoid confusion with Flourish Trace.)

 

[MSU Fan]

ok thanks...to the store i go!!!

 

[MSU Fan]

update - so I have been dosing with ferts (nitrates, phosphates, potassium, trace, and iron), and I cannot believe the growth in the tank...that being said, I have done a black out, but I have been doing 50-75% pwc at least every other day to keep the "greenness" down.

Then I did a crazy thing yesterday - I cleaned my filter (xp3). I dumped all the filter water into the sink, the I cleaned off the gunk from the filter pads in that water. It was so brown that I couldn't see the bottom of the sink (<2"). so gross...anyway, greenwater is pretty much gone today (a little cloudy, but I am figuring bacteria bloom from cleaning).

Then I thought about it: that was the first filter cleaning I had done since I got the filter (3 months ago ). so...note to self: clean xp3 at least once every 6 weeks! As I said, the water is still a little cloudy, but it was pretty bad at one point. So this is a miraculous turnaround. I will post some pics later today.

 

[MSU Fan]

So I haven't posted in a while on this (or anything really), and I thought I would throw out an update. I am firm believer in addressing the root cause. I no longer have any green water. No blackout, no diatom filter, no UV sterilizer. Just normal maintenance combined with fertilizing. It has been 2 months since this update, and while the water was not as green as some of the tanks that have been posted, it has completely cleared. No special treatment at all

I haven't read too many success stories on this site such as this, and since patience is one of the aquarist's virtues...

 

[rich311k]

Glad to hear it worked out for you. That is how I conrtrolled my green water as well. Strict dosing and a lot of patience. Congratulations.