Green Water

Originally posted by Tom.E
IMHO, daphnia aren’t worth the extra effort with diatom, UV filters, and tank blackouts as the other options. Unless you like to experiment. :DTom
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The Vortex XL or D-1, and a UV sterilizer will 'fix' that green water problem promptly. Just the diatom filter should do it. It's a good investment for getting super clear water... :)
 
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Look at Shiftaltumlock's planted tank in his current thread "Final pics...." A gallon of his water would cure green water!

What would you expect to find in water that clear, figuring it hasn't been medicated in the last months? Well very little algae or detritus at the base of the pyramid, to judge from the photos, so you'd expect to find a correspondingly light population of plankton, but a great diversity of kinds. That's what makes the water both clear and stable: low density/high diversity.

That's mature, balanced water. Get a founder population of that from Shiftaltumlock on moving day, and your green water is over! "Saint Altumlock! let us draw a pitcher from your magic well!"

I get cultures of Euglena once a year or so. I just can't keep them pure. And I can't give the photosynthesizers enough brilliant daylight to stay ahead of their grazers. The culture eventually clears. If I put some green water/euglena culture into each of my tanks, the tanks don't go green. They clear.

How can you avoid this state of affairs? Keep everything in turmoil: vacuum gravel, dose with fertilizers, overload with fishes, zap with UV and medications. It's a lot of work...
 
Yes Matek, that was a tongue-in-cheek comment by me, and probably not a good one. There are transportation regulations with zebra mussels and for good reason. I’m not sure if they’re even legal to keep in an aquarium. I better go back and edit it out.



Tom
 
Yes Matek, that was a tongue-in-cheek comment by me, and probably not a good one. There are transportation regulations with zebra mussels and for good reason. I’m not sure if they’re even legal to keep in an aquarium. I better go back and edit it out.
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Oh just great Tom! I just got back from scraping the hull of a freighter at the docks in Toronto at Lake Ontario and put the little blighters in my tank. Now what am I going to do???

*Steve places tongue in cheek and wistles innocently*
 
But does it hurt the fish?

Will GW harm the fish after an extended period of time? Also, Mrs. Claus is bringing me a diatom filter for Christmas. If I rid the tank of Green Water and add a couple of litres of water from a healthy planted tank after the cleaning, will the beneficial little guys from the planted tank live in the diatom filtered tank?
 
Originally posted by inxs
GW will not harm anything , diatom filtering will strain some beneficial stuff out ..
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Sounds like you mean using a diatom filter is not a good thing (?). Never heard of that...
 
I was actiually thinking more of UV sterilizing but also diatom filtering will remove some beneficial algae which takes time to colonize the watercolumn.

IMO UV sterilizing and diatom filtering are both very useful tools to clean up messy water, GW outbreaks and disease but it isn't good to use them on a regular basis as prevention just like antibiotics for humans. If you do that your tank will be more succeptable to outbreaks and swings in waterchemistry.

The best thing to do is to set up the largest tank possible and get is established and balanced (fish and plants) , once you get that you should try to minimize interfearance into the environment .
 
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