Greenish / Cloudy Water / Substrate

I have exactly the same problem short of the algae in the substrate. Unlike drdream I've never used a regular fluro tube, only ever the proper tubes. drdream: This could well be your problem.

As for me, well, hell.. I dunno..
I did a check of my water the other day and the ph was well and truly alkaline.. I did a 40% change and put a little bit of ph-down. (a bad thing to do, I've learned now). I also rinced out my filter pad and medium in tank water.
Doing a change temporarily semi-solves the problem, but the algae just comes back.
As you can see in the following pics, it's both white and green.
Yes it's near a window, but no direct light gets in, and I've had the tank there over 2 years. This problem has only occured in the past 3 months.

I've tried doing changes every week, every half week and even once every 2 or 3 weeks.

The closest I have come to success is leaving the tank for 4 weeks. The water cleared up, but upon changing the water it went green/white again.

More details: I've used three different water treatments in the time of the evil algae cloud: Stresscoat, Safe Guard 5 (an aussie local brand) and aquatan.
I use stresszyme as well.

I feed the fish flakes and frozen blood worms on alternating days, the catfish get algae flakes which get entirely eaten.

I took some water to my LFS and the bloke said that there was nothing wrong with my water.. (specifically no phosphates) He suggested algae clear and do less water changes.. I lost all respect for him.

My fish have no ill effects, they love it.

ANY HELP WOULD BE FANTASTIC!
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Thanks!
 
Im waiting to see if the water clouds back up. The floro tube is only a few days old and this problem has been persisting for the last 3 months. Perhaps elcano and I have some things in common. I will list the differences between my pristine tank, and the green monster.

Tank was pristine in other apt. So . . .

New Things since i've moved:
1) In-House Water heater

2) Directly in front of a window (i think its dark but paying more attention i concede that sun rays do penetrate the tank through the blinds but only penetrate about 1/8 of the tank)

3) Hi PH water

4) Ground Level apt (other was 4th fl)

5) Used different large rock-like COAL than the filter came with.

6) Used live frozen shrimp (possible excessively) But have not used live food in the last 45 days or since water change.

The tank appears to be slowly getting cloudy again. If it clouds again i will give it the blanket treatment to rule out light as the problem.
 
dr...
I've used a carbon filter as well with no result what so ever.
I also tried the blanket treatment for 48 hours, with no result.

I'll have to check, but I think we had a new water heater installed around 3 or so months ago. If that's the case I might try heating cold water accordingly.

If Iron is the problem, does anyone know how to get rid of it?
A Magnet? :p :D
 
Puzzling... I can't think of anything that would cause a new hot water heater to cause algae blooms...

What level of nitrates do both of you get? You can't have algae without nutrients. I'm also a bit perplexed by the discrepancy between drdream's tap water pH vs. tank pH.

Also, drdream, I think the direct sunlight you note is likely a player in this -- how could it not be? -- there are probably a number of contributing factors, and I'll bet the sunlight is one of them.

Jim
 
The water is definately clouding up again.. Its not so green this time.. im about to give up! i dont know what else to do
 
I took a water sample to my LFS today and the results were 0 nitrate, 0 phosphates, 0 ammonia, okay ph..

man, I dunno.. I'm rugging my tank again.
pure black out for 4 days.. see how it goes..

I shall report back.
 
I had the same problem with my 72 gallon. All the sudden my water was green...nothing had changed in the tank, it just happened. I covered the tank with a THICK blanket (you'd be surprised at how much light can get through a couple sheets) for three days. After three days, it was still a little cloudy, but I did a 50% water change and it got increasingly clear over the next couple days. Two-three days later it was back to normal.

Melanie
 
plan a: do the blanket bit and don't take it off til either the water clears. or maybe go 7 days with it covered, whichever comes first. use a thick, dark blanket. you basically want no light to make it into the tank. it takes very little light to keep the algae bloom going, i did some experimenting with one before with a tank in my cellar. even the gloomy light coming in thru the painted windows was enuf to keep mine alive when i just left the lights off. i still had to totally blanket the tank to kill it. then once it dies, do a fairly large water change......

plan b: get a diatom filter, this will fix the problem in a couple of hours........

the acu-clear is just a polymer? clumping agent, i bought it myself a long time ago. it just binds all the little particles into big particles and makes them large enuf for the filter to trap..... if you leave these in the filter after they're trapped they just continue the problem.....

discontinue any chemicals and carbon/zeolite (ammo chips) *besides* water conditioner would be a decent idea. the *only* thing i use with my tanks is "stress coat" as a water conditioner, although some of the old timers would advise something even simpler like "prime". stress coat adds aloe and/or some other junk you really don't need, i just find it convenient to do the "1 squirt per gallon" thing.

i would caution you to be careful as you kill the algae off and do some extra water changes and test the water. i have a strange little theory that your tank might be either barely cycled or not at all. when the algae "bloom" like that they can actually take the place of the bacteria as they will use the nutrients at least as easily as the bacteria and i would hazard a guess that they will multiply alot faster. so when you remove the algae by blanket or diatom pay attention to your ammonia reading, you might start seeing some. just doing water changes will help as it will also remove some of the nutrients the algae thrive on each time. you cannot make your water "too clean".......

good luck and post back
 
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