Have been following this thread with interest as I got my first outbreak of what I suspect is green water about the time it started (although the water is not actually green so much as hazy-yellowish-foggy looking.)
I too am on well water and have had zero greenwater problems in my older tank, 10g/substrate-fairly heavily planted/heavy bioload. The newer tank is the one with the problem: also 10/g but no substrate, plants all in glasses or bound to driftwood in turn attached to rocks. Occupants, 4 tiger shrimp, 4 adult endlers, fluctuating numbers of endler fry and 1 (supposed to be 3 but I never see more than 1 at once) bumblebee dwarf cats.
So supposing the problem is phosphate from the well, what is the solution? Am I doomed to having to lug 10 gallon jugs of water home from the store every time I do a water change? And why did the tank look pristine for the first four months, with this problem only showing up in the last week or so? Would addition of substrate and direct planting, and more plants, return it to proper water appearance?
Ironically this tank is the one NOT in any sort of direct sunlight. The older one that I never had a problem with sits right in front of a window. This time of year the sun is too high in the sky to shine directly on it but lots of indirect light as you might expect. Window has no drape or shade on it as it faces nothing but woods and an abandoned cemetery so the gaze of passersby is not a factor.
I use this
http://www.marinedepot.com/filter_media_two_little_fishies_phosban_hydrocarbon-ap.html
With a phosban in a phosban reactor listed on the same page ... the only thing I suggest if you use that ...have a ph buffer on hand on initial media break in.
As for water vs having other tanks. No way for me to tell why now and not prior. Well water and tap water can change without notice. Especially well water on what may leach into the well. Also even with water changes things build up..Phosphate ..nitrates... so even with your water changes. It is on the rise regardless ..so once in a while doing a 80% change needs to be done. And has been proven by testing in a water chemistry book. The gain of nitrate/phosphate per week vs whats taken out...eventually lead to needing once a blue moon large water changes. It is hard to say why 4 months later you had an outbreak. I can only guess. Over fed? Water went south? Bioload was too high before next water change? Dunno.
The drift wood could be releasing tannin into your water also givnig it the discoloration. Thats one other thing you could be dealing with.
I almost forgot about driftwood. Also drift wood could have some decay going on. I don't think its the main problem for you. Just something to consider about tannin. It does make the water discolored.
The phosphate and nitrate stuff I've been going over isn't just about green water... its mostly about dealing with cyano or algae in general.
There are multiple ways to go about your situation. using plants acts as refugium (sp?) in marine cases. We use plant life (differ way) as a nutrients export system. To keep phosphates down and nitrates. The fact your other tanks have lots of plants means they are most likely feeding on enough of the nutrients that the algae is being out eaten on the food supply. Thus keeping it nicer than the current. That is the only theory I have on that.
As for doomed to lug water.... I would say with bad outbreaks do a big water change with that pure water just to really slam those nitrate phosphate numbers down. Once done you can use phosban to keep the phosphates out....while using your current well water source.
So only in times of bad outbreaks you only have to lug jugs =). Is one avenue.
I didn't mean to open pandoras box here with the algae info really.:Angel:
I sometimes forget what I was like in FW....i didn't know this much about water till salt... This info i gave can be overwhelming ....so sorry about that.
If I can think of alternate solutions, I will let you know. You may want to fire off a general question about Well water and filtering suggestions in the marine forums. Maybe one of the guys/gals has some ideas.
Everything boils down to nutrients import and export for both FW and SW. You want to limit the import as much as possible. Rinsing frozen foods (juices contain phosphate), Feed lighter if you are heavy handed, using clean as possible water source. We can get assistance on the export by planted tanks and using media to pull out nutrients.
That is what I should emphasize here. The paragraph above. All this advise in this thread is all about nutrients exporting..be it using algone, carbon,phosban, pure water..etc etc...
