Green water has plagued my 20 gallon. I was wondering if there was a solution that didn't involve a blackout or uv sterilizer. At the moment I'm changing 25% percent of the water every day. This is keeping it at bay but I miss only needing to change water weekly. Could an increase in co2 or a hydrogen peroxide regimen help at all? I welcome any links to articles on the subject seeing as I can't find too much info on pertaining to my situation.
Green water solutions.
- Thread starter Atxpunx
- Start date
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.
If you have answers, please help by responding to the unanswered posts.
I left out some info. I'm pretty sure the green water has to do with excessive ammonia. I put what I now know is is too much osmocote plus at the bottom layer at the startup of the tank. Substrate is oildri, I run a dual bulb t5ho odyssea fixture and a dual 26 watt cfl fixture. I have 2-2 liter DIY co2 generators running independently, each with bubble counter. Lights are on 8 hrs a day. Flourish comprehensive is the water column fertilizer.
You didn't say how long you run your lights. You may want to shorten your running time and not use both light fixtures. Adding some nutrient absorbing floating plants like duckweed will help mop up some of those nutrients, you can also add some water sprite (it can be floated too) and here is a rather lenghty post on green water... How to get rid of Green water - New to Planted Aquariums - Aquatic Plant Central.
I the thread provided by rivercats, I'm going to read up on algicides and pick the least harmful. Seeing as the tank is a plant only I'll only have the plants to worry about. I'm still open to more ideas and info on the original topic.
Not to contradict, but I found a uv sterilizer on eBay for under forty dollars. Being that the tank is young I don't think I'll do too much damage to the beneficial bacteria. I would just like the solution to be more mechanical other than depend on a living creature. I'll try that first and then move down to daphnia and finally save algaecide for a last result. Thank you very much rivercat for your input on my dilemma.
jetajockey
come get me tang police!
The UV should help but I'd still address the root of the problem to begin with. This kind of algae is in the air all around us all of the time, there is a root cause that has brought it on and is maintaining it thus far. I'd look into dosing routine and light intensity/schedule.
A dual t5ho + 2 CFL over a 20 is a ton of light. Even a 2 bulb t5ho alone over a 20h can easily put you in the 'too much light' category, so I'd start by cutting back.
A dual t5ho + 2 CFL over a 20 is a ton of light. Even a 2 bulb t5ho alone over a 20h can easily put you in the 'too much light' category, so I'd start by cutting back.
I was opposed to uv sterilizers because of the cost but the cheap one is in my means. To jeta, I'm pretty sure the cause is a large amount of ammonia from my initial setup. I misjudged how much osmocote plus I needed. I added the two cfl fixture because my repens was creeping over my other stem plant and now it stays straight I must admit, I really like the reds that I'm getting out of my plants also.
blert said:
Do you think it's still too much light for high light plants? It's just that I have glosso in the foreground and ludgwigia arcuata in the background. Would it still be sufficient lighting with just the two bulb t5 ho fixture?
Right now you have to cut down and fix the green water problem. Then I'd try to two lights, if your then having plant problems and you decide to up you lights you are also going to have to fertilize and either use liquid carbon (Excel) or CO2 so the plants have what they need to utilize such high light.
