Major algae bloom.. green water

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Xzap

Aquarium Advice FINatic
Joined
Jun 29, 2005
Messages
587
Location
Triad, North Carolina
90 gal cycled
2.9 wpg
low co2
no3 10ppm
4dkh

I have a bigger and better reactor & UV sterilizer ordered.
In the meantime is there anything I can do to help with the green water. It's so dense I can hardly see the back of the tank now.

Cutting 1/2 the lights off? Cutting the lights off totally ?

I still have a little gren spot, but the hair & BBA are under control.

Thx,

Dave
 
I had green water. Turns out I have quite a bit of phosphate in my tap water. raising my nitrates so I had a 10-20:1 ratio over phosphate fixed it for me.

IMO...UV sterilizers and diatom filters are not long term solutions to the problem.
 
Yeah, go to 15 or 20 and see what happens.

In the meantime, if you want to filter some of what is already there out withough buying new toys, you can try this:

If you have a powerhead, "quick filters" help a bit, although they don't get rid of all of it.

http://www.drsfostersmith.com/product/prod_display.cfm?pcatid=4638

I even used some paper towels in my filter with moderate success. :) (they turned swampy green, so they caught something!!)
 
Ok great. Now, I have never been able to understand Chuck's calculator. In the box where it says amount of water to mix with, I would take that as the amount of water in the tank ?
I'm confused.

Dave
 
The amount of water in that field is for a dosing solution -- say if you want to make make a mix of liquid NO3 instead of dosing dry. You would put the compound into a bottle, then dose by mL into the tank. You'll want an opaque bottle that closes tightly for the dosing bottle, btw.

Put tank gallons into tank size. -- it's best to remove ~15% or so of the volume to account for displacement of substrate and stuff.
 
10:1 ratio shouldn't give greenwater.

also, on chuck's calculator, if you use 1mL for amount of water, that will tell you how much the dry compound will raise the entire tank's level of the nutrient (since its per 1mL of dosing solution used)

if you download chuck's calculator (Windows only, sorry Mac users), it has a Dry Dose option built into it.
 
From Tom Barr:
A Typical Tank
A typical routine for a high light tank with low fish load:
Volume 80 liters (20 gal high standard tank)
5.5 watts/ gal. - two 55watt 5000K/8800K lamps


A Typical Dosing Routine
1/4 teaspoon of KNO3 3-4x a week (every other day)
1/16th-1/32nd teaspoon of KH2PO4 3-4x a week (every other day)
Traces added on off days as the macro nutrients, so 3x a week, 5mls each time.
SeaChem Equilibrium 1/8 teaspoon after water change.

At 90 gals that would be 20 X 4.5.
1/4 tsp of kno3 X 4.5 = 1.13 tsp ?

Dave
 
malkore said:
10:1 ratio shouldn't give greenwater.

also, on chuck's calculator, if you use 1mL for amount of water, that will tell you how much the dry compound will raise the entire tank's level of the nutrient (since its per 1mL of dosing solution used)

if you download chuck's calculator (Windows only, sorry Mac users), it has a Dry Dose option built into it.

So 1.13 tsp of kno3 would raise my no3 11.39ppm in a 90 gal tank?

Thx,

Dave
 

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malkore said:
10:1 ratio shouldn't give greenwater.

also, on chuck's calculator, if you use 1mL for amount of water, that will tell you how much the dry compound will raise the entire tank's level of the nutrient (since its per 1mL of dosing solution used)

if you download chuck's calculator (Windows only, sorry Mac users), it has a Dry Dose option built into it.

Thanks Malkore.. I downloaded Chuck's calculator.. it's pretty cool :)
Another tank I have is 10:1 and it's never had green water.

Thx,

Dave
 
I would not shut down any of the light though. Even with little light the algae will still excist, since they can live in much worse conditions than plants.
Add the nutrients like the others said and give it a little time 8) .
 
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