green water for the first time ever!

angyles

angyles

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Nov 4, 2002
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I'm having a MAJOR green water outbreak and I don't really know why. I've done some reading and it doesn't seem to make sense.

So for a few months I've been using the EI method of dosing, and have been keeping my CO2 in the green (spring green according to crayolla ;-). a couple weeks ago I decided to reduce my growth a bit. I dropped from 3 doses a week to 2, and turned my co2 down a tad; still green, more of a grass green. right now, my water is grass green as well. my ammonia, nitrites and nitrates are all 0. my light is the same now as it was before I ever started co2 or fert; 5:30-10:30am, 4-8pm. never had a problem with this light timing for years so I'm thinking it's a fert/co2 problem.

so, would a reduction in my ferts lead to green water? that seems backwards! should I go back to doing 3 times a week? right now I've turned off the co2 and have started a blackout.
 
Use a UV filter to eliminate the gw now. Others recommend a black out or a huge water change, but the only thing that ever worked for me was the UV. Took two days for it to disappear and I haven't seen it since.

Here is a link to my battle with it. It lasted all of a week.
 
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If your Dosing fertilizers not sure why you would have a 0 Nitrate?

EI gave me green water also..

pack your filter, use Seachem Clarity, maybe a second dose after a couple hours and then your water will be clear. Then you can figure out what caused your green water and try to eliminate the problem.

Could be dosing Micro nutrients to close together if you are dosing them or a root tab dissolving into the water.

Don't waste your time with a black out, if you can get some Clarity it should clear up within a hour or 2 with good packed filtration.
Fish, plant and shrimp safe. I used it a few times and it works great with no issues of any kind at all.
 
I haven't dosed in a few days, since the outbreak started. I don't have a UV filter and I don't want to go buy one. I do have some clarity so I'll try that, but I really want to understand what happened. I would think I would have had more of an algae problem when I was dosing more often.
 
okay I'm THINKING my problem is from reducing the co2. I need to get the CO2 back up into the 'spring green' color region so the plants can take advantage of it more. Sounds like, if I want to slow growth, rather than scale back the ferts and co2, I should scale back my lighting period, then adjsut the co2 and ferts.

I think that's what I'm gathering from some info at the barr report.
Tom barr!!!! where are you?! am I grasping this right? even though I've always had this light period, I wasn't dosing ferts. Now that there's ferts (even a slightly reduced amount) either algae will use it or plants will use it. By reducing my CO2, I limited how much of it the PLANTS could use, and so algae took over.

yes? no?

So course of action sounds like huge water change, clarity, jack UP the CO2 again, reduce my lights by maybe an hour or 2, and go back to dosing 3times a week.
 
I'd try the CO2 increase, but a UV will be a quick fix. In my experiences, the GW didn't go away after blackouts, water changes, playing with CO2, stop ferts, growing Spathiphyllum in my HOB filter(don't ask), etc. UV took the green water out in a matter of two days or so and I"ve not dealt with it again.

To slow the growth down, I agree with you that you need to reduce lights. Not photoperiod, but the actual strength of your lights. What kind of lights do you have on the tank? Cutting the CO2 or ferts while maintaining the lights is asking for trouble.

UV is fairly cheap, Petco or Petsmart sells a decent one for around $30 I believe.
 
Check here. I got the submariner one from the same place. Petsmart has the Green Killing machine found here for $40-60. Its possible the spectrum of your bulbs shifted a bit and the algae is photosynthesizing better than the plants. How old are the lights? Look here for an interesting article about lighting quality and algae/plants.
 
mikeb210 said:
Use a UV filter to eliminate the gw now. Others recommend a black out or a huge water change, but the only thing that ever worked for me was the UV. Took two days for it to disappear and I haven't seen it since.

Here is a link to my battle with it. It lasted all of a week.
Click to expand...


Yup. Same here.
 
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