green water
- Thread starter fishdude92
- Start date
don't know what's causing the green water and i'm feeding them normal tropical fish flakes(tetrafin)
ehhh... It's so common. You can google a bazillion websites. Try here first. I love this guy:
http://www.otocinclus.com/articles/greenwater.html
http://www.otocinclus.com/articles/greenwater.html
Most likely an algae bloom. The first questions for you are, 1) does the tank receive dierct sunlight, and 2) what are your water change practices and what are your nitrate readings?
The common first things to try are to keep the aquarium out of sunlight and to increase water change amounts/frequency. Also, if the water you're using for water changes contains a lot of phosphates, this might need to be dealt with.
The common first things to try are to keep the aquarium out of sunlight and to increase water change amounts/frequency. Also, if the water you're using for water changes contains a lot of phosphates, this might need to be dealt with.
If those don't help, use the search engine here and look for "green water". There's a googleplexzillion of them 
Roan
Roan
Kill the Green Water
Getting rid of green water (algae bloom) is relatively easy. In order for algae to thrive it needs two things.
1. Light
2. Nutrients
Here lies the key in defeating this algae bloom which is a sign of a healthy biofilter. First thing I want you to do is reduce the amount of time you leave your aquarium lights on. Go to home depot or some other home improvement store and buy a timer. Set it to have the aquarium lights on for 8-10 hours a day maximum. This will start to deprive the algae of a much needed light source (Algae use light to make food and since they single cellular, they can't store too much food and will burn off most of it trying to sustain their lives and possibly stop dividing with reduced light)
The next thing I want you to do is start doing 20% water changes (make sure you vacuum the gravel) every day until the bloom clears up. My guess is that you have too many phosphates and nitrates in your water contributing to the bloom. The water changes will fix this.
One more thing that can help you is adding some floating live plants like elodea (anacharis) since they will block the light and absorb lots of nutrients from the water. Before you know it, the green water will be a thing of the past.
One more thing: Stop using those algaecides most of them are copper based and not too healthy for any fish or invertibrates that you might have in the tank. They just treat the symptoms temporarily and your activated carbon in the filter will quickly remove the copper ions from the water rendering the treatment useless rather quickly. Why not just treat the cause which is a lot better and also cheaper.
Getting rid of green water (algae bloom) is relatively easy. In order for algae to thrive it needs two things.
1. Light
2. Nutrients
Here lies the key in defeating this algae bloom which is a sign of a healthy biofilter. First thing I want you to do is reduce the amount of time you leave your aquarium lights on. Go to home depot or some other home improvement store and buy a timer. Set it to have the aquarium lights on for 8-10 hours a day maximum. This will start to deprive the algae of a much needed light source (Algae use light to make food and since they single cellular, they can't store too much food and will burn off most of it trying to sustain their lives and possibly stop dividing with reduced light)
The next thing I want you to do is start doing 20% water changes (make sure you vacuum the gravel) every day until the bloom clears up. My guess is that you have too many phosphates and nitrates in your water contributing to the bloom. The water changes will fix this.
One more thing that can help you is adding some floating live plants like elodea (anacharis) since they will block the light and absorb lots of nutrients from the water. Before you know it, the green water will be a thing of the past.
One more thing: Stop using those algaecides most of them are copper based and not too healthy for any fish or invertibrates that you might have in the tank. They just treat the symptoms temporarily and your activated carbon in the filter will quickly remove the copper ions from the water rendering the treatment useless rather quickly. Why not just treat the cause which is a lot better and also cheaper.
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You have excess nutrients for algae to consume. Overfeeding, rotting debris or plants, infrequent water changes...so you have to restore balance.
http://www.plantgeek.net/article_viewer.php?id=9
http://www.thetropicaltank.co.uk/algae.htm
http://www.plantgeek.net/article_viewer.php?id=9
http://www.thetropicaltank.co.uk/algae.htm