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fishfairy

Aquarium Advice Activist
Joined
Jul 23, 2005
Messages
190
Location
Nashville, TN
All of a sudden like in the past 2 or 3 weeks, my water has gone from crystal clear to this terrible mucky green color. I still do regular water changes and the test levels come out OK, so I am pretty sure this is just a very bad case of algae. I can't figure out what is causing it though. The tank has been in the same spot since I set it up in July. There is 1 tiny window in the front door that kind of shines on it during the day, but it has never caused algae before. I leave the tank light on from about 7:30 in the morning until 4:00 or 5:00pm. I just started using a new food at about the time that the tank started turning green, but I'm not sure how that would cause this. I am using Wardley flakes if that means anything. Does anyone have any advice as to what could be causing this? Thanks in advance!
 
Personally I would still lean towards you getting an algae bloom due to a light problem. Maybe a combination of you over feeding, leaving a lot of nitrates in the tank for the algae to bloom and feed off of.

The quickest and easiest way to get rid of it is to completely black out your tank. Turn off all lights, and completely cover the tank with towels/blankets for about 3 days. Do a PWC afterwards, and you should be good.

However it may just happen again if it's a light problem. How much are you feeding? How many fish? How big is your tank?

-brent
 
I just started using a new food at about the time that the tank started turning green, but I'm not sure how that would cause this. I am using Wardley flakes if that means anything. Does anyone have any advice as to what could be causing this? Thanks in advance!

Different food, different phosphate levels, different protien amounts... if you can, look into New Life Spectrum. it's supposed to not dissolve that easily in water.

The soloution to clear up your water is above, a complete blackout for 3-4 days, preceded by a PWC of 50%, then a 50% PWC afterwards. the tank must be completely blacked out.. bubble stones can be added if you are worried about the fish having air. otherwise, no peeking..

Also, how old are your bulbs? after 1 year the light spectrum becomes erratic and can produce all kinds of odd problems.
 
I had something similar happen in my new tank recently. I pretty much chalked it up to an algae bloom, did a 70% or so water change, and it has been fine ever since

this was about 2 weeks ago.
 
Do you have plants? I'm recoving now from a horrible green water problem. You couldn't see more than a couple inches into the murk, and now my water is almost clear. I solved it by fertilizing my plants in a more balanced fashion, so they could compete with the algae.
 
Follow the black out advice above. However the problem here is not getting rid of the algea, that is easy, we need to find out why the bloom occurred. What are your phosphate levels. I had a similar problem a couple weeks ago. I was advised to do the black out, it worked. I also took out all the decos and rinsed and dried them well for a few days then put them back in the tank, so far so good. Greenmanji suggested my problem was with phosphates. I had not cleaned out my filter in months. I changed the media every now and again but never took apart the filter and cleaned it well. He suggested this was the source of my phosphate levels and the algea bloom. I subsequently followed his advice and now will be cleaning all my filters monthly, just the physical plastic parts and impellar, not the media. Get a phosphate test kit and test. PWC will get rid of phosphate in the water but not the stuff hanging out in the filter.

Thanks again to greenmanji

Good Luck
Brian
 
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