# Need help green water



## dirtyted (Mar 5, 2010)

I have a major free floating algae bloom. This my third week of cycling my tank. Water changes help for about 10 minutes. 

My tank
30 gallons
3 guppies 
2 amazon swords (8 inches tall)
3 banana plants
5 stems wisteria (2-3 inches tall) 
3 java fern
12 stems bacopa caroliniana or rotala indica

my hardware 
t5 ho 48 watts one bulb 6700 k one 10,000 k on for 12 hours a day now reduced to 10
diy co2

my water
ph 6.6 (7.6 before co2)
nh3/nh4 .25(i believe to be nh4 from tap water)
no3 20 ppm
no2 5ppm
gh 7 dkh
kh 3 dkh
po4 .5 ppm
fe 0
tests done with api test kits excepr for iron with a hagen product
please help if I do not change 50 percent of water a day I can barely see throught the tank


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## Tuiflies (Jan 21, 2010)

I did a four day total black-out after a 60% wc then another 60% wc after the four days were up. My water sprite suffered but the GW is gone and hasn't come back.


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## boink (Nov 29, 2006)

Back the lighting off to 6 hrs a day until your plants are bigger. I suggest adding more plants also. You have very high light for a long period of time and the DIY co2 doesnt provide a stable source of co2.

You could run a UV, diatom filter, buy pressurized co2, water changes to address the problem.


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## bosmahe1 (May 14, 2005)

I would verify the nh3/nh4 level in your tap water as well. Ammonia will make minimizing algae very difficult. It may be deadly to fish as well.


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## f1ea (Jul 7, 2009)

Green water is pretty much always due to ammonia, too much light (sometimes you may not even be able to measure the ammonia), and the plants not yet fully growing.

With a week of the following... i have it go away:

1) Cut down on your photoperiod a little bit. Give it 8hrs.
2) Feed less to your fish. Once a day (and not too much). Or maybe even take them out if you see them too distressed.
3) Add Egeria densa and/or Hornwort FLOATING.
4) Don't do water changes and don't disturb your substrate.
5) Make sure your bio filter is working properly (ie cycled, not clogged, not dirty, sufficient for your tank etc)

In a week or even less you should be clear. Once your water is clear, you can remove the floating plants and go back to regular; but pay good attention to your nitrates and dont let them drop too much. 

You can do the other things mentioned here, like get a UV filter, pressured Co2 and so on. But the above is quite simple and natural. Green water does not harm your fish (the ammonia does however!) and will not last forever.


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## dirtyted (Mar 5, 2010)

bosmahe1 said:


> I would verify the nh3/nh4 level in your tap water as well. Ammonia will make minimizing algae very difficult. It may be deadly to fish as well.


my tap water contains chloramine. After the tap water is treated the ammonia still shows up but I believe it to be ionized at that point and noy toxic to fish. It does obviously does contribute to algae bloom.


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## bosmahe1 (May 14, 2005)

dirtyted said:


> my tap water contains chloramine. After the tap water is treated the ammonia still shows up but I believe it to be ionized at that point and noy toxic to fish. It does obviously does contribute to algae bloom.


Adding floating plants, Hornwort especially, will help remove with ammonia. Increase your plant load, plants love ammonia.


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## sandie (Jan 11, 2010)

f1ea said:


> Green water is pretty much always due to ammonia, too much light (sometimes you may not even be able to measure the ammonia), and the plants not yet fully growing.
> 
> With a week of the following... i have it go away:
> 
> ...


Excellent Advice!


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## flashbang009 (Aug 6, 2009)

couldn't have said it better than f1ea. a common "error" is doing water changes. They only make it worse. A uv filter from petsmart is a good idea. Only problem is it masks the effect of an imbalance in your tank somewhere.


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## dirtyted (Mar 5, 2010)

Thank you for all of the advise I purchased a couple more test kits for phosphate and iron and also some flourish products (potassium, iron, phosphate, trace and excel) to try and customize my fertilizer. I grabbed a cheap uv filter and installed it yesterday today water looks much better. Not green but still cloudy I guess some water changes are necessary to remove the dead algae from the tank.


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## flashbang009 (Aug 6, 2009)

Your filter should remove most of the dead algae in a few days, then you can rinse out the filter media with tank water once the water is clear.


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