Green Water Algae

[FSEMTB2]

Anybody have anbody suggestions about getting rid of it?

 

[rich311k]

Diatom filter, UV, blackout. What are the specs of your tank. If you don't figure out why, you will keep on fighting it.

Proper fertilizing and good CO2 levels as well as a lot of patience also works.

 

[godzilla]

am fighting this myself right now. Today I did a major water change (50%+) and it was crystal clear for a few hours, getting worse towards the end of the night. I just started dosing dry ferts so I partially blame that. My plants are growing like weeds however and the fish dont seem to mind

The water change helped, and i hope that once my tank stabilizes from the ferts, it will work itself out. I dont really feel like plunking down 100 bucks for a diatom filter but if I must, I must. I leave town tomorrow for a week so when I get back things should be interesting. My wife will feed the fish, and she will fertilize, but theres no way she will do a water change or clean the tank so Saturday should be interesting

good luck, and let me know if anything you try works

Mike

 

[7Enigma]

I'm a big fan of a diatom filter. Normally GW is caused by excess ammonia. Check for a fish death, or lots of decaying plant matter. There are also several chemical treatments with marginal effectiveness. If you can afford it, a diatom is a great way to "restart" a tank with GW problems.

godzilla,

Make sure you post a pic when you get back.

 

[rkilling1]

I am having GDA and GW issues for about 2 weeks now. Once I felt I had it controlled, it would start all over again.

The cause of my problem was removing a ton of plants and not thinking I would get GW.

I went and purchased a magnum 350 filter and loaded it with DE. Within an hour my tank is looking great. (I needed a filter for another tank anyways)

Here are some before and during pics. (I am still in the process of cleaning)

Before

1 hour later

before

1 hour later

before

1 hour later

This is what the filter looks like with DE in it:

 

[godzilla]

I'm a big fan of a diatom filter. Normally GW is caused by excess ammonia. Check for a fish death, or lots of decaying plant matter. There are also several chemical treatments with marginal effectiveness. If you can afford it, a diatom is a great way to "restart" a tank with GW problems.

godzilla,

Make sure you post a pic when you get back.

Im sure it will be interesting! based on what I see when I get home, ill probably get the filter. I dont imagine there is fish death, i keep a pretty close count. The only thing I cant keep track of is the 10 zebra danios. I can only ever count 7-8 at once. they move quickly.




rkilling1, that tank looks great! keep up the pics.

 

[squawkbert]

I have an outbreak myself (tank is only a few weeks old). I've been adding a little more ferts & CO2, backing off on light. I'll do a blackout if things don't improve soon. (If I can find a freebie at work, I'll also try an inline filter on the 1/2µ or smaller between the eheim & spraybar.)

 

[Rupret]

I have had major problems with green water algae. My tank was far worse then rkilling1's, but rkilling1 did give me some advice that has worked or at least helped. Dose with Excel and then keep dosing with the initial dosage of Excel for a week. I have almost a week done and my tank looks great. But I did do a few other things also.

1. 50% to 75% water changes weekly
2. Montitored tank chemistry, <0.25 ppm of NH3/NH4 and elevated NO3 and PO4
3. Decreased KNO3 dosing to ppm level and increased K2SO4
4. Have not dosed KPO4 due to elevated PO4
5. Add a dose of bacteria starter
6. Cut back on my lighting by half
7. Dosing with the inital Excel dose for almost one week now

My last water change, the NH3/NH4 were back to zero. The tank looks great for the last week. I'll be doing another partial water change today. I also know, I will have to keep monitoring the water chemistry and dose appropriately. I may keep the light cut by half for a couple more weeks; I may add a couple more plants to be sure there is enough to utilize nutrients, lighting, and such before going to full light (3+ watts per gallon).

Hopefully, I am getting back on track. I had a couple months of problems, so keep with it. If I can get a handle on it, so can you. The people here on AA are great sources of information. I know all too well how frustrating it can be, but keep working at it, try to find out why, and go from there.

Hope I helped some.
Rupret.

 

[godzilla]

ok, here goes. I have absolutely no idea what happened while I was gone, but here is my timeline:

Left on Monday for florida. gave my wife a fert dosing schedule and a feeding schedule. This is the tank when I left:

looking pretty rough, hence the posts in this thread earlier this week. Was going to order a diatom filter, but decided to wait a few days to save the cash from a project im doing.

came home today, to this:

WOW! all gone. Of course, a trim is very necessary...but everything looks great. I have no idea why/how this happened. Also, I wish I knew this stuff spread quite like this. A few random bits came with some plants I ordered so I tossed them in, and 2 weeks later:

Crazy!

Anyway, I guess the planted tank mystery continues....

Just thought id share.

Mike

 

[Lonewolfblue]

Looking good, lol.....

My 75G was that way for a while til I had so much plant mass that it starved the duckweed out, and it hasn't come back since. Just disappeared.

 

[Hoovercat]

Just to add a FYI, the Magnum HOT is a really great diatom filter for only $50 and can be backup on any tank or primary on tanks 50gal. or less. All you need is the micron filter, a box of diatonaceous earth, and a turkey baster. From what I've heard around here it seems a lot more durable than the vortex. I've heard of too many folks buying the vortex and dropping and breaking it after 1-2 uses.

 

[Lonewolfblue]

Just to add a FYI, the Magnum HOT is a really great diatom filter for only $50 and can be backup on any tank or primary on tanks 50gal. or less. All you need is the micron filter, a box of diatonaceous earth, and a turkey baster. From what I've heard around here it seems a lot more durable than the vortex. I've heard of too many folks buying the vortex and dropping and breaking it after 1-2 uses.

Actually I would never trade my Vortex for anything else.

 

[SparKy697]

Could the duckweed have filtered out enough light to kill off the algae in the water?

 

[Lonewolfblue]

Could the duckweed have filtered out enough light to kill off the algae in the water?

Nope.....
It probably used up all the excess ammonia and nitrate, which destroyed the greenwater. Ammonia is usually the main cause for greenwater.

 

[7Enigma]

Just to add a FYI, the Magnum HOT is a really great diatom filter for only $50 and can be backup on any tank or primary on tanks 50gal. or less. All you need is the micron filter, a box of diatonaceous earth, and a turkey baster. From what I've heard around here it seems a lot more durable than the vortex. I've heard of too many folks buying the vortex and dropping and breaking it after 1-2 uses.

Actually I would never trade my Vortex for anything else.

Neither would I. I was one of the posts whom broke the filter on the 4th use. I was cleaning it and dropped it on the concrete from about 3 1/2 feet up. It landed, as expected, on the motor and ceased to work. I don't blame anyone/thing but me for that one. It was, however, a blessing in disguise because the Vortex D1 model is a piece of @##$ compared to the XL model. Completely different materials used, the hosing is thicker so it won't cramp, and it has capacity for a MUCH larger tank (I have a 20 and a 10 gallon).

I just decided on a dwarf gourami and needed to convert my overcrowded snail tank (even with 50% PWC's per week this thing was disgusting), into a QT tank for a couple weeks before going into the main tank.

I used a new charge of powder with the XL and for the first time ever managed to completely STOP the flow of water because of how much snail poop was on/in the substrate. The filter was BLACK, completely covered, and after the filter and a 50% PWC, the nitrAtes were back down to under 20ppm, previously I could never keep them low regardless of PWC's.

The gourami is happily relaxing in a 10 gallon all to himself (with some snails as company)!

EDIT: Rupret, I would recommend you continue to dose phosphate, even if its less than you previously dosed. I personally believe that phosphate might be in a non-usable form to plants but will be detected on our tests due to using caustic chemicals for the test. I had not been able to kick some deficiency symptoms even though I was reading well over 4ppm phosphate, but I also was having some GSA (indicative of low phosphates). Upon some suggestions on here I started to dose in small amounts even though the test said it wasn't needed and sure enough the GSA went away and the plants looked better.

 

[Rupret]

Thanks 7Enigma. You are not the first one to mention that. I have began to dose at a lower dose. I'll see how it does, if phosphates don't sky rocket or green algae does't proliferate, then I'll increase it up to my desired dose.

Right now, my tank looks great. I am going to take in pieces to increase my phosphates, keep nitrates to current levels, and eventually work on increasing my light. Hopefully, doing it slowly will let me know what causes the algae proliferation if it occurs again - hopefully it won't.

Any other suggestions for any of us with green algae and green water?

 

[7Enigma]

One thing I think everyone with planted tanks should avoid is doing large prunings/rearrangements in the morning/early afternoon. Or simply turning the lights off after the pruning for a good 12 hours or so. I've recently started only pruning in the evening an hour or 2 before lights off, and will then manually turn them off until the morning.

You kick up a LOT of mulm from the substrate when a large pruning is done and this in turn can release a lot of ammonia/nitrIte into the water column (the mulm can also break down into ammonia when floating around the tank rotting). Like clockwork you can induce GW and algae with a large trimming/rearrangement.

By doing the pruning before lights out, or turning them off for 12 hours you give your biological filter time to convert all the ammonia/nitrIte to nitrAte, and allowing for the solids to settle and/or be filtered out.

I've had much more luck with the tank since doing this and I think it would eliminate a good bit of the GW posts on this forum.