High Phosphates - Algae Bloom

ckeck

ckeck

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Jul 4, 2004
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Florida
www.savepic.com
Tank 20 gals – long 30” x 12” x 12”
PH : 7.2
Co2 = 8
Ammonia: 0.0 mg/l
NitrIte: 0
NitrAte: .0
PO: 2
Hardness: (GH): 25 ppm
Akalinity (KH): 250 ppm
Filter: Penguin 170 Bio Wheel Power Filter
Co2 System
Light: SmartPac 65W (white light)
Substrate: Floral Base
Heater: Temp in tank 72-74 degrees
1 Rock Cave and 1 fake Driftwood, 1 lava rock
Fish:
8 neon tetras
1 male / 2 Female Black Phantom Tetras
2 male fancy Phantom Tetras
1 silver hatchet Tetra
3 UPD Catfish
2 Cory Cats
1 Bristlenose Cat
Live Plants: 7 Java Plants and 3 Banana Plants, Anachrias, Carrot Tops

I have been having an algae bloom for about 6 weeks. I would do partial water changes, but within a couple of hours, it was back. Someone said to try Clarity, but then I had white / green water and when all the white went away, it was green again.

I then covered the tank, stopped feeding the fish and still when I unveiled the tank it was green, green, green. I read somewhere that you really need to vacuum out the substrate if you have an algae bloom to get rid of all the nitrate causing substances so I removed anything green in the aquarium and cleaned it, vacuumed the aquarium super well, put everything back and added Stability for bacteria and had a clear tank for 2 days.

The water is now beginning to turn slightly green again, only a lot more slowly than before so I must have done something.

I finally got a nitrAte test and a Phosphate test kit since everyone said that the algae live on those two substances. Nitrate tested 0 = I mean it didn't even budge. But the phosphate test (by Red Sea) turns really dark which meant that it was 2.0 and above. I then tested distilled water and got the same results, so I wonder if the test is working correctly.

I am very careful about feeding my fish and watch them eat and don't let anything fall to the floor. The bottom critters are fed about 1 x every 3 days so they can eat off the aquarium. I know I have a large bio load, but it was doing fine for a while and then all of a sudden this happened. I do water changes every week. I added plants to help the balance out and nothing is dying - thank goodness. I keep my lights on 10 hours a day for the plants. I have added a phosphate filter behind my other filter, but the reading is not changing, though I don't know how long it takes to change.

I was thinking about getting maybe a diatom filter or something that might help. Maybe chaning my substrate back to gravel so I can vacuum better would help? I have no idea and am trying to fix it without spending hundreds of dollars on things that don't work.

Does anyone know what I can do? I would like to stay natural, but I really am sick of having green water. I work really hard to keep my aquarium healthy and this is really ticking me off. I just want happy fishes.

Should I get rid of some of the fish? If so, how many since they are all schooling fish so I would have to dump one whole species on my LFS.

Any help would be helpful. I have been writing Seachem and talking to my LFS and every one is pulling their hair out trying to figure out this mystery.

Thanks in advance for any help you can give me. :confused:
 
well i ahd an alge bloom in my tank and i used alge fix and it worke dreally well for me. it cleared my tank really fast. good luck.
 
You don't mention how long your tank has been up. Green water is sometimes a problem in newer tanks that usually clears itself up in a few weeks. Rather than try a chemical like algae fix you might want to try a phosphate absorbing pillow like phos-sorb, but don't forget it will remove the phosphate that your live plants need as well.
 
There are a few things that spring to mind right away.

First off all your nitrogen titers read 0ppm, this is not a good situation, it basically means that either you've got a faulty test kit or your tank is dead (okay, not quite true). We know it's not that last, so something's up. In a cycled tank there must be NO3, but in an uncycled tank you would pick up either NH3 or NO2.

Bring some water to your lfs and have them test for NH3, NO2, NO3 and PO4 to verify your test kits. Unless you're dosing specific ferts for your plants, NO3 and PO4 kind of go hand in hand, so under normal circumstances of food/fish being your source of NO3 and PO4 one cannot be high while the other is low.

Green water, free floating algae, do not make use of NO3, they lack the cellular mechanisms to remove the 3 oxygen atoms. They use NH3. That doesn't mean that you'll be measuring NH3, just that it's there and being produced and that the prodcution rate is high compared to the rate at which the filter is converting it to NO3.

Here's how we'll solve your problem.

First off, verify your test kit results. You say that you tested PO4 on distilled water (presumably after very thorough rinsing of the test tube) and got a positive, so your PO4 kit is suspect.

Also, Karnaaj is right, sometimes new setups are prone to green water, especially very heavily stocked ones. Your 20g tank is quite heavily stocked. I suggest the following and I believe that you will be quite pleased with the results:
1 - Choose 1 group of tetras and fill out the school, they will occupy the upper level of your aquarium. Providing them with lots of uninhibited swimming space will allow them to school better and be more active.
2 - Cut back on your bottom dwellers as well. My choice would be to keep the cories and get rid of the other two types of cats, the cories will make better scavengers, upside down cats want bugs.
3 - Maybe add some ghost shrimp or something else non-fishy to give your tank an active but unique look.

This will lighten the bioload on the tank and allow you to better moderate nutrient input.

Next, CO2, you've got about 13ppm right now and you want that to be around 25ppm. Your biowheel is hurting you in this respect. While great for nitrification, biowheels are heck on CO2, you want to reduce surface agitation.

Once you cut back on the surface agitation and get CO2 up, get/verify test kits and reduce your bioload, irradicating this green water will be easy, I'm not kidding. I had the same problem as you when I was just starting out in the hobby. I had a terribly overstocked tank and ran around doing a lot of stuff like buying a PO4 adsorbant (get rid of that, btw) and the like. Once I lightened the stocking, cut back on feeding and did lots of water chages to get things under control the problem was solved.
 
Wth live plants you do need to show and have nitrate, ~10ppm is a good place to start. You also need some phosphate, but not nearly as much. I'm comfortable with N:P about 10:1, but have operated at higher phosphate levels without problems. You have CO2, so that should not be an issue (do you know the dissolved CO2 levels?). But your plants need nutrients. You might also try adding a bunch of stem plants after you have added nitrotgen in in the form of nitrate. Nutrients and light and CO2 must balance plants, with light if don't have nutrients for the higher plants, you will have algae. If you don't have enough plants, you will still have algae.
 
Tank Set up

My tank has been set up actually 3 times. I set it up once as a 10 gallon, but it leaked the week it finally cycled. Do I bought the 20 gallon, it cycled and I was hit with 3 hurricanes. So the 3rd time I set it up was actually October.

How do I cut down on the bio wheel agitation? Is there a way or a new filter, which I really don't want to do as I just bought this one. How about if I crank up the Co2 a little more to compensate?

Your fixes are wonderful and I will go to the LFS tonight and get the water tested.

Thanks again. :soda:
 
Hold off on the bio-wheel agitation thing for now, a different filter, btw.

First let's deal with the nutrient levels, test kits and stocking level. After those are dealt with you may find that pushing your CO2 level is a non-issue.
 
Bio Load

I contacted my LFS and they have agreed to take my silver and black tetras. I have 9 neons so that should be enough for their school. I plan on giving them a couple of my bottom feeders but want to keep my bristle nose cat and the corys as they are continually cleaning the area. They just fed their ghost fish to another hungrier fish that night, but I can get some on Tuesday when they get a new shipment. If I keep the neons, then I don't have to worry about the fish eating the shrimp as the black tetras love shrimp.

I retested my NO3 and it still read 0. When I told the LFS, they said that probably the PO4 test was inaccurate so I am bringing a sample of water to them tomorrow to retest.

By the way, what is NH3?

I just retested with what I have: Ammonia = 0, Nitrite = 0, Nitrate=0, PH 7.6. It might be because I did a huge WC the other night to vacuum the substrate and get rid of most of the algae. But of course it is comming back. Maybe it is reacting as though it is a new tank because of that.
 
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