Dreaded "Green Water", Fishless Cycling, and other questions (plants involved)...

[Leto]

The Rundown on my tank:

Running for ~5 weeks now
20 Gallon High
78 degrees
PH hangs around 7.1 or so
Tank includes 1 small Java Fern and 4 bunches of Anacharis (have used no fertilizer)
3 - 15 watt flouresent tubes (2.25wpg)
HOB filter
A colony of snails that hitchhiked in on the anacharis (small pond snails I believe)

Every evening when I test, Ammonia reads Zero and I dose it with clear ammonia solution to raise it to 1ppm (which it promptly reduces back to Zero by the following day.)

About 2 1/2 weeks ago NitrItes first appeared and within a week jumped to 3.5ppm - at that time I was worrying about the cycle and decided to give myself a break and give time for the tank to work so I did not test for 3 days - 3 days later when I DID test, Nitrites had somehow dropped to 1.0. I expected the Nitrite spike to last much longer (and higher) than that. The odd thing about it is that to this day (a week solid) Nitrites have been hovering around 1.0, occasionally dropping down to about 0.5ppm but then rising back up to 1.0ppm.

I have ~20ppm NitrAtes coming directly out of the Tap water, but during the past week my tank has measured around 5ppm Nitrates or so (I mostly credit the Anacharis for that - which is what I was hoping for putting them in there.)


******************************

During the past 5 weeks I have come to realize that I have done so many things wrong with this tank that it isn't funny. I tried to cycle with plants in the tank which means I had the lights on during a fishless cycle. That has lead to me having at least 4 different types of Algae in my tank that I can identify: Brown Algae - some Green fuzzy algae (very small amount only) a funky case of Beard algae that won't go away, and most recently a really nasty cloud of Green Water algae.

I do not have tests for Phosphates, Potassium, GH, KH or Calcium/Iron etc - only PH, Ammonia, Nitrite, Nitrate.


Tonight I am attempting a blackout on the tank: I did a 50% water change then completely covered the tank in black plastic bags and dark drapes - I don't believe any light has a chance of getting through. Tonight is Monday, unless I hear otherwise I plan to uncover the tank on Saturday morning for its normal 9:30am light-on cycle giving it Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday and Friday completely in the dark.

Currently the HOB filter is on, but I am worried that having it covered in black plastic bags will burn it up - it should be ok, ya?

I do not yet have any fish in the tank so that isn't much of a worry and to be totally honest I am not overly concerned with the well-being of that minor snail infestation I have. But I AM worried about my Anacharis - much of it was just starting to settle in and showing signs of healthy growth.

I really don't want to kill them and have to start the whole process all over again and end up with the same green algae problem all over :(

I am also really confused about the Nitrite readings: I had expected that when the Nitrites were to start dropping that they would drop to zero realitively quickly, not fluctuate both up and down around the 1.0ppm mark. Is it possible that stage of the bacteria isn't up to snuff somehow?

To boot I was also surprised at the Nitrate readings: From reading all over the net about the Fishless Cycle, I had expected my Nitrate readings to jump WAY off the chart once my Nitrites started to drop significantly - espically considering my Tap water starts out at a good 20ppm baseline. Ironically it was the opposite that happened and I really can't fully explain why:

The day my NitrItes tested at 3.5ppm my NitrAtes also tested at 25ppm. The VERY next time I tested it (3 days later) when my NitrItes tested at down at 1.0ppm my NitrAtes tested at 7ppm (down from 25ppm instead of up!). And they have never gone up since then....dropped from 7 to 6 and from 6 to 5 where it has been hovering for days.

Any idea what could have happened inside those 3 days to cause such strange results ?

Anyway, I have read everything I can get my hands on and I can't explain my results and really do not understand where my tank is in its cycle (the plants really complicate matters - I'm over my head here.)

I have put a lot of money into this aquarium and really cannot afford to put more into it (which is why I am going the blackout route instead of a UV or other fancy filter etc etc to try to take care of the problem.)


Anyway, If I am doing anything wrong or if I should be doing something different, I really could use any advice and information anyone who has dealt with these same issues could provide.

Btw, when I was draining the water from the tank during the 50% water change, I was draining it into a white bucket and the water was very, very clearly a lime green. At first I thought it might have been a late bacterial bloom somehow, but in the past several days it has become obvious that it wasn't the bacteria. The haze was thick enough that you couldn't see from one side of the tank to the other at all.

5 weeks in I am really hoping that my cycle is nearing its end and that things will stabilize so that I can add fish soon.

Would really like to have my algae problems under control by then. For the record I do not mind having some green algae on the ornaments or substrate, but having the "Green Water" phenomenon so that I can't even see into my aquarium just totally defeats the purpose of having an aquarium to begin with :(


I have never done any of this before (or dealt with any of these problems obviously) so absolutely any suggestions, advice or information would be hugely appreciated. :help:

Right now I am mainly worried about the state of the fishless cycle, and what the blackout will do to my aquarium and my plants. (also having my HOB filter running when it has a plastic garbage back pressed around it - ugh)


Thanks for any help ;) It isn't too late for me to backtrack and forego the blackout period or something if that is a really bad (or useless) move.

[TheMightyQueenPixie]

I have never attempted a cycle with plants, however it would be a fair guess that they may suffer through the blackout...However, i have found black outs usefull for dealing with "green water" Also, use a piece of coffee filter in your hob...positon it so that most if not all of the water has to travel through it...Regular coffee filters are good for a few hours max before they start to break down...Oil filters (for deep fryers i believe-sold at restaurant suppy) are bigger and stronger...Change often, it will catch alot of the floating algae...
Good luck!

[Leto]

...Regular coffee filters are good for a few hours max before they start to break down...

Interesting ;) I would never have considered that.

[khombre]

hello there

i think it is possible that ur nitrate levels are not rising because plants do consume these things :D

[staceyanna]

Wow, can you elaborate on this? I am suffering from cloudy green water even though a blackout cleared out most of the green, I am still cloudy.

How do you use a coffee filter??? Do you use multiples, or just one or how does this go?


...Regular coffee filters are good for a few hours max before they start to break down...Oil filters (for deep fryers i believe-sold at restaurant suppy) are bigger and stronger...Change often, it will catch alot of the floating algae...
Good luck!

[TheMightyQueenPixie]

Staceyanna- i am not sure what kind of filter you are running, but i can explain how to do it with an emperor 400....i just slap one cut to size on the back of the square charcoal basket...water flows through, filter catches algae...Works pretty good in conjunction with a blackout

[Producer]

I have been running a 55 gallon tank for about 5 years now. I have never had any major problems, just Ich a few years ago.

Now, the last 5 months I have had nasty green water. I even moved the tank a few weeks ago. I put all the fish in a 5 gallon bucket with the aquarium water and put in fresh water, and instant green water.

It is real bad. Its just plain green and you can not see through the tank longways. There is nothing growning on the sides of the tank like it use to do.

I just gave full light depravation from Sunday to this afternoon (72 hours). Looks the same. I fed the fish a small amount and covered it again. I guess from what I understand I could do this until sunday or later? I have read on other sites that magic will happen after removing the blanket to a crystal clear tank. I really doubt this will work.

I do not know anything about PH / nitrate levels, I just bring a sample to the local pet store and they told me everything looks fine, just keep it out of the sun.

I am totaly stumped.


update; I read some other problems on this site, and everyone seems to agree with light depravation. I just wish I could drop a chemical in there to kill the algae.

FYI; its fresh water, about 6 fish and no plants.

[blasterman]

There is nothing growning on the sides of the tank like it use to do.

That's because the water borne algae is sucking all the nutrients out.

I usually experience with green water blooms with new tanks, and rarely mature ones. In any case, I hate to resort to chemcial warfare, but I've found petstore algacides at half dose will clear it rather quickly

[khombre]

hey there

i wouldn't go with the chemical warfare against algae either..
this may stress ur fish..
try the blackout first.. one method at a time..

do u have plants in the tank?
plants sometimes outcompete algae in getting nutrients from the water..
from wat u said it appears that u have lots of nutrients in it..

maybe a partail water change before the blackout? :confused:
experts pls comment on this :o

[ghinksmon]

Getting back to Leto's nitrates,

No offense intended but are you sure you're testing properly? I've found nitrate tests in particular must be followed exactly as per the directions. In my test, that includes shaking solution bottles well, mixing step 1 with tank sample before adding step 2, and finally waiting a full 5 min before reading the sample. I suppose manufacturers may use different reagents but in mine you must follow directions fully or you get false readings.

As for the blackout I believe the plants will recover from a 5 day period, I would try not to wrap the filter too well. Newer mag-drive filters run cooler than the older styles but can still build up some heat so allow for air circulation.

Let us know how you make out.

[Leto]

Getting back to Leto's nitrates,

No offense intended but are you sure you're testing properly? I've found nitrate tests in particular must be followed exactly as per the directions. In my test, that includes shaking solution bottles well, mixing step 1 with tank sample before adding step 2, and finally waiting a full 5 min before reading the sample. I suppose manufacturers may use different reagents but in mine you must follow directions fully or you get false readings.


Yes, I'm sure :) I use the timer on my watch to get all the timing correct.

And I am fairly anal about it as well - if I get a result I didn't expect, I re-test it. I have also tested my tap water, and bottled water etc. My tap water is consistantly about 20ppm Nitrates, my tank water has been testing around 5ppm....bottled water (Deer Park) shows only trace amounts (<1ppm, very close to zero without actually being zero.)

[Leto]

Let us know how you make out.

I took the cover off this morning and did a 50% water change. The water was drastically clearer, and the Anacharis mostly seems to be ok (some of the stems that were not so healthy before the blackout may be far enough gone that they need to be removed but otherwise they seem to have done fine.)

The filter media was due a change so I did that and now (several hours later) the water seems a little cloudy but I'm hoping that is maybe just a minor bacteria bloom because of the media change rather than anything to do with that despisable green water I was trying to get rid of :p

I tested my water both before and after the water change: A new trend is a little bit troubling: my PH is trending downward pretty steadily. The tap measures at a pretty nice 7.1 but the tank water is now at 6.6 and trending downward.

I'm not panicing yet or anything but I definatly want to track down the cause of it so I can stabilize it at a level closer to my tap water.

It is also of note that the NitrItes was 4x higher when I took the cover off than when I put it on. Nitrite measurement of a little higher than 2.0 *after* the water change (was up over 3-something before the water change).

Still no fish in it, but I am seriously questioning the state of the cycle in my tank, espically considering this is its 6th week :( :(

[staceyanna]

Thanks for the tip! I have an emperor 280!


Staceyanna- i am not sure what kind of filter you are running, but i can explain how to do it with an emperor 400....i just slap one cut to size on the back of the square charcoal basket...water flows through, filter catches algae...Works pretty good in conjunction with a blackout

[Galaxie]

Leto,
How exactly do you dose your tank with ammonia? I would think you should dose on a regular schedule and never give it a break. Eventually the ammonia will drop to zero, then you should increase the dosage to account for a heavier fish load (depending on what fish you plan on adding). I was thinking you stopped dosing ammonia when you saw the nitrites spike to 3.5. You can't stop dosing.

Also, with no actual solid waste, you should not need to ever change your filter media until you have fish. Changing your media could have set your cycle back weeks. You are cleaning your filter media with tank water, and not just replacing it, correct?

(edit)3 x 15 watts really isn't much light for plants in a tall 20g tank. Its so deep, 15 watts can't really penetrate to the bottom. Java Fern doesn't need much light, but Anacharis does.....and will grow like crazy with good light. On my 20g high tank, I've used 2x45 watts, but have just ordered 2 x 60 watts. The bottom is covered with Java fern and there is one Amazon sword.

[Leto]

Leto,
How exactly do you dose your tank with ammonia? I would think you should dose on a regular schedule and never give it a break. Eventually the ammonia will drop to zero, then you should increase the dosage to account for a heavier fish load (depending on what fish you plan on adding). I was thinking you stopped dosing ammonia when you saw the nitrites spike to 3.5. You can't stop dosing.

I was dosing daily until the blackout (which inturrupted things) ...raising it to about 1ppm and it would drop back to 0ppm by the following day.

I am considering dosing twice a day, but only half as much per dose (same net volume) - I am worried that it was the ammonia in the water that encouraged the Green Water to begin with.

The odd part was that it would take 1ppm of Ammonia to zero every 24 hours without fail, but the Nitrites after initially dropping always stayed between 0.5ppm and 1ppm (often going up and hanging around 1ppm more than it would be lower), but never ever going to zero.

I'm not entirely sure what the difference is since the blackout, why Nitrites would have gone up so high like that all of a sudden - I know that my ammonia schedule was thrown way off, but unless something other than bacteria was eating nitrite that wasn't eating it during the blackout, then I really can't explain it.

[Leto]

btw, to get 1ppm using the "clear ammonia" solution I had (water was one of the ingredients, but no dyes or any of that stuff - it passes the shake test), I have to use ~1 teaspoon.

[Galaxie]

It is pretty odd that the nitrites won't drop to zero. Depending on how many snails are in there, they make waste themselves and are possibly interfering with your artificial cycle. Consider this...... Stop dosing ammonia. If the snails survive, fish might survive also. Its not really a fishless cycle if you have snails creating organic waste.....and the ammonia you add is just throwing your test levels off. How long have the snails been living?

[Leto]

They are only very tiny snails and they came in on the second batch of Anacharis I bought. (first time I only got a single bunch, second time I went and got 3 bunches, and I think the snails were only on even one of those - the LFS kept anacharis in several different tanks, and one was from a tank I had not purchased from before....ironically it was also the most healthy of all the anacharis I had bought and is *still* doing the best hehe).

Anyway, that would be about.....3, maybe 4 weeks ago? Something like that.

The snails have grown from specks you could hardly make out (literally, they were only *just* big enough to see that they were in fact some kind of snail, but you literally could not tell anything beyond that, they didn't even have any color yet) to growing over a 1/4 inch long for the smaller ones, and their are a pair of larger ones that have been doing better that, including the tail are close to half an inch now.

It is of note that I did not have any source of bacteria at the time, and at that point my aquarium had shown zero sign whatsoever that it was cycling at all (what ammonia I originally added was still in there and not changing levels at all at the time.) So I figured that if I now had even small snails in there, then I had some of the beneficial bacteria as well.....I also figured that the ammonia levels would kill them all off within a couple days or so.


I was wrong :p These things act completely immune to both any ammonia -or- nitrite in the tank (I know they can't be, but I can't tell any effects.)

In fact they seem to be doing well enough that I am worried I am going to have a little infestation on my hands: When I took the cover off of the aquarium I noticed attached to some of the plants and decorations in my tank, little bubblish looking things (almost invisible) that had white dots inside it. The only thing I can think of is Snail Eggs. (yikes!)


Anyway, to make a long story short, they were just infant snails that hitchhiked in on some of the Anacharis. They were not something I bought intentionally.

At best count the most snails (1/4inch or longer) that I can ever count at once are like 8, and even though I know those things can hide extreamly well, I don't think there are all that many more than that (normal count is 3-5). Not sure those little guys by themselves could produce enough waste?

[Leto]

Some things to report:

Today I got the phosphorus test and the GH/KH test:

This evenings test results are thus:



Temp: 78
PH: 6.7
Ammonia: 0.0
Nitrite: 2.0
Nitrate: 80
Phosphate: 0.5
dKH: 2
dGH: 3 (the GH test was really hard to tell on, 3 is my closest estimate - there was never a sudden shift of color, it was always extremely light)


Notables are the KH being pretty low.

What shocked me the most however was NitrAtes at **80**. Nitrates have been testing at ~5ppm for literally over two weeks. Now a jump to 80ppm overnight (I did test yesterday and it was at 5ppm)

My Nitrites didn't visibly drop though. How could that have happened other than the nitrogen cycle, and how is it possible to jump that far that fast? no curve up or anything.

I am so confused :(


I also have to note that the water is sooo very GREEN :( I did the 5 night, 4 day total blackout and within 3 days it is greener than it was before the blackout :( :( :( I literally can't see through the tank all over again.


I am so very frustrated :(

In 2 days I will start the 7th week on this tank and never had a single fish :(

I don't know what to do.

[Producer]

Same problem here still. Looks worse.

I was going to start testing this on my own, but I see you still have the same problem Leto. All that testing you do and even no fish in there, ouch. :rant2:

I got algae eaters in there now, so a UV lamp is out fo the question. The water changes just make it worse. I guess a full 7 day light deprevation?

Oh well, I am about ready to give up.

[Galaxie]

I use a Turbo-twist UV sterilizer on one of my tanks.
Originally I bought it to clear up algae...which it did marvelously. But I hooked it up again about 3 weeks ago to combat an unknown that had been slowly killing my swordtails and mollies. So far, none of the fish are showing signs of getting sick. Could have been some sort of microscopic parasite (hexamitis?) that hopefully now has a terminal sun tan.