# Cloudy water problems again..



## Jag1980 (Aug 1, 2008)

Can someone help me with my cloudy water issue?

I think it has to do with my Fertilizer dosing, but when I try to get into detail about what might be the problem, no one responds to my post anymore.. I just get simple answers like dose more or dose less.. I think there is more to it then that and would like if someone with more advanced knowledge help me get some answers please.



Maybe dosing Iron with my other fertilizers, or maybe dosing too much of one type of fertilizer? Before I started dosing my tanks with fertilizers I only got green water 1 time in 6 years, now I get it every couple months..


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## Zapins (Jul 28, 2004)

I'm not sure why you switched from your previous dosing schedule to EI. Your plants looked wonderful! Also, EI shouldn't give you phosphates of 9 ppm. This means you are either adding too much or not changing enough water out each week. 

I agree with what the others said about ammonia causing greenwater. If flake food is overfed and allowed to rot then greenwater usually results.

I'm not sure what knowledge you are specifically looking for. The other forum seems to have covered how to get rid of the green water pretty well. 

Can you be more specific about what exactly you are looking to find out?


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## Jag1980 (Aug 1, 2008)

I stopped dosing the IE when I got green water the time before this.
I was going pretty good for a while when I switched to my own calculations, then I got green spot algae on my glass and a little bit of Staghorn (which I think could have been caused by my melting lily when I first got it), so I started upping my dosing just a tiny little bit and now I got green water.. When I up my dosing I seem to get cloudy water, but I keep getting told to up my dosing. When I do this, my Belem's take a crap and now 2 of my Crypts are melting.. Something isn't right. 
I checked my water when the green water started and I have no ammonia in my water 0.0

I feed 5 to 6 times per week once a day and only a little bit. I have fish at the top and bottom of the tank, shrimp and snails to take care of anything that happen to not get eaten within a couple Min's. When I feed the snails and shrimp, I will sometimes drop some small crumbs of algae wafer and everything is gone by morning, I do this every 3 days just to make sure that they are getting enough food.

I think something in my dosing is causing a major problem, but I don't know enough about fertilizers to know what it could be?

Here's my tank about a week before the green water started:
2 Red Cypts in the front left are half gone melted away and my Belem's are starting to look worse. I haven't taken a picture of my tank since the green water as it looks horrible..









This is what my tank looked like 30 days ago. 
As you can see I was having good growth on my Cryts and my Belem's where coming back to normal compared to the picture above.


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## Zapins (Jul 28, 2004)

I think if you have tests you should test the water for all nutrients you can. It will help figure out what is going on. The other site seems to show only the dosing info based on calculations. By the way, are you using the fertilator to calculate nutrient levels?

I can't remember 100% but I seem to recall that Belem's stunt when one of the following get too high: Ca, Mg, or K (can't remember which one). Maybe one of the other members can comment on this.


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## Bert H (Mar 2, 2004)

I can't open your link, as I am not a member there. But, here's some thoughts for you - if you have test kits for NO3 and PO4, calibrate them, so you know that they will read accurately, and check out your water. If above, say 30ppm NO3 and 3-4ppm PO4, do a major change and get your levels down to 10-20NO3 and 2-3 PO4. You do not want to dose macros and micros at the same time if you're dosing EI. Some folks with PPS do so, but the levels dosed are much lower with PPS than EI and iron will react with phosphates and give you cloudy water. 

Use the fertilator on this site to figure out how much to dose and try the following: At water change add enough NO3 to achieve 10ppm, and PO4 to get 2ppm, mid week repeat that doseage. For potassium (K), add an equivalent amount weightwise or teaspoon wise as you add NO3 (if you add 1/2tsp of NO3, add 1/2 tsp of your potassium source). Then add your micros on the days you don't add the macros. On the seventh day, do your water change, and start again. HTH.


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## Zapins (Jul 28, 2004)

Bert - just scroll down on his link, you should be able to view the post. I also initially thought I couldn't see the info


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## art_b (Sep 2, 2006)

How is your filter? When my filter broke down, I started to get green water. I used a UV sterilizer, but it just came back. I guess it is the ammonia not breaking down to nitrite and nitrates. But after I replace the impeler fn my filter, and got it going again, I never had green water again, ever. I got different types of algae though


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## Jag1980 (Aug 1, 2008)

Bert H said:


> I can't open your link, as I am not a member there. But, here's some thoughts for you - if you have test kits for NO3 and PO4, calibrate them, so you know that they will read accurately, and check out your water. If above, say 30ppm NO3 and 3-4ppm PO4, do a major change and get your levels down to 10-20NO3 and 2-3 PO4. You do not want to dose macros and micros at the same time if you're dosing EI. Some folks with PPS do so, but the levels dosed are much lower with PPS than EI and iron will react with phosphates and give you cloudy water.
> 
> Use the fertilator on this site to figure out how much to dose and try the following: At water change add enough NO3 to achieve 10ppm, and PO4 to get 2ppm, mid week repeat that doseage. For potassium (K), add an equivalent amount weightwise or teaspoon wise as you add NO3 (if you add 1/2tsp of NO3, add 1/2 tsp of your potassium source). Then add your micros on the days you don't add the macros. On the seventh day, do your water change, and start again. HTH.


I use Fertilator. Seems to be dead on accurate with my test results.

Here's my tank dosing info that I have been using:

*27 Gallons of water*
7 Day Dosing Guideline for High light and well planted 29 gallon aquarium.
¼ tsp KN03 3x a week =Friday, Sunday, Tuesday - Gives 7.8 per dose - Target 10-20ppm
1/64 tsp KH2P04 3x a week =Friday, Sunday, Tuesday - Gives 0.6 per dose - Target 0.5-2.0ppm
1/16 tsp K2S04 3x a week =Friday, Sunday, Tuesday - Gives 6.92 per dose - Target 10-20ppm
1/16 tsp CSM+B 3x a week =Saturday, Monday, WednesdayGives 0.17 of Iron per dose - Fe Target 0.1ppm
1/32 tps Iron =Fri, Sat, Sun, Mon, Tue, Wed - Gives 0.13 per dose - Target - 0.1ppm
50% weekly water change = Thursday
Lighting is about 8 hours per day. 
Co2 drop checker is always light green
I rinse out my filters once a month with 75*f water
My sand substrate stays very clean and I almost never need to use the siphon to clean up anything.
Fish:
1 3" SAE
3 Scarlet Badis
4 Young Badis Badis
3 Pygmy Cory's
2 Oto cat
2 Amano Shrimp

When I tested my water the test read right at what I should be according to the target ranges and what I 'm dosing in my tank. I'm at about mid range to the target ranges on the 7th day before I do water change. Also, on day one I'm right at where I should be by what I dosed matching up with the Fertlizer calculator. 
The only test that I can't test for at the pet store is K Potassium. 
Test kits are very expensive at $17 for 1 test kit..

*So I'm thinking it has something to do with the Iron I dose when I dose the Macro's like what you said above or my Potassium levels are to high?*
*2 Red colored crypts I have melted and my Belem's are very affected when this happens.*

What do you think?

Seems to get thicker as the day goes on..It was worse before I did a 65% water change a day or 2 ago. 
I just gone done doing a water change after I took this picture

I haven't dosed my tank in about 3 days, but I have my Co2 tank come on still.

The color is only a little bit of green tint, more milky white it seems.


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## Bert H (Mar 2, 2004)

From your pics, descriptions and comments, I would say you have green water problems. Blackouts work well for this. Do a search for how to do them here.

Regarding your dosing, etc. If it were my tank, I would only dose N and P twice a week, maybe increasing your P dosing a little bit (1 - 1.5ppm per dose), and dose the K only once a week at water change. I don't know how you're measuring 1/16 and 1/32 tsp, because I've never seen ones on the market that are really accurate at that level. That's a possible point of error. I dose iron from solution - much more accurate way to do it if you have ways to accurately weigh it out to make the solution.

HTH.


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## Tex Gal (Nov 1, 2007)

I wonder if your iron is precipitating out with your phospates. Dose them on different days. When the iron does this the tank gets foggy. It doesn't look green though. To me your px looks foggy. The green appears to be a reflection from the tank. Does it happen every time you dose the iron, in about 1/2 an hour?


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## Jag1980 (Aug 1, 2008)

I have been dosing just a tiny bit of extra Iron on my Macro days from what is shown on my schedule, which gave my mixture a extra unwanted boost which must have triggered this problem. I thought Iron was suppose to be dosed everyday is why I added to my dosing schedule on Macro days. I will remove it from my Macro days and see what happens.

I haven't noticed how soon it happens after I dose, it starts to appear so slowly it's hard to notice it until it's too late.

Any idea what causes my Belem's to react so badly when this happens?


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## Jag1980 (Aug 1, 2008)

Bert H said:


> Regarding your dosing, etc. If it were my tank, I would only dose N and P twice a week, maybe increasing your P dosing a little bit (1 - 1.5ppm per dose), and dose the K only once a week at water change.


Interesting.
I was always told by everyone to increase my dosing. I'm very interested in your reason for doing this method of dosing compared to what I have been doing.

On water change day, I do not dose ferts and I do my water change before my lights go out. 
Could you help me out on what days of what to dose? 
I would like to try your dosing recommendation, just would like to hear what you have to say as to why. 
Helps me in the learning process on understanding the reasons behind it


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## Bert H (Mar 2, 2004)

> On water change day, I do not dose ferts and I do my water change before my lights go out.
> Could you help me out on what days of what to dose?


I have no scientific data to prove or disprove the following, but here's my reasoning. When you do a major water change, you're removing large amounts of nutrients, so it makes sense to me to add them back at this time.



> I would like to try your dosing recommendation, just would like to hear what you have to say as to why.
> Helps me in the learning process on understanding the reasons behind it


This is due to personal experience with my particular tanks and my water - another way to say all tanks are different.  Long time ago, I was doing EI dosing as suggested, meaning the way you're doing it. Then I decided to test my levels of NO3 and PO4 and found NO3 was over 60ppm! Although, I couldn't see any issues with the fish or shrimp, I wasn't happy with that and felt it was an accident waiting to happen. After doing a massive water change to bring it down to around 10ppm I decided I needed to change my system. So I went with twice a week dosing of macros. I feed my fish daily, and fish load is moderate, so there is contribution from there as well. As an example, I dose 1/4tsp of NO3 twice a week to my 50 gallon tanks. It maintains the NO3 levels in the 15-20ppm range.

One more thought for you. You say you're growing Tonina belem which means you must have relatively soft waters. Generally speaking, you can get by with lower levels of macros in soft water as opposed to having harder waters. Therefore, imo, you're overdosing.

My 2 cents.


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## ray-the-pilot (May 14, 2008)

For $50 + shipping you can get a 5 watt UV sterilizer. I have one and it completely eliminated all my cloudy water problems.

http://www.aquariumplants.com/Helix_Max_Aquarium_UV_Sterilizer_p/am77899.htm

I've been using it for about 9 mo. in my 52gal aquarium. Since you have a canister filter on your aquarium you would only need to make a bypass to keep the flow rate through the sterilizer at the right rate.

I could be wrong but I'm pretty sure a UV sterilizer will get rid of your problem permanently (or at least until your bulb needs to be replaced).


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## Jag1980 (Aug 1, 2008)

Bert H said:


> This is due to personal experience with my particular tanks and my water - another way to say all tanks are different.  Long time ago, I was doing EI dosing as suggested, meaning the way you're doing it. Then I decided to test my levels of NO3 and PO4 and found NO3 was over 60ppm! Although, I couldn't see any issues with the fish or shrimp, I wasn't happy with that and felt it was an accident waiting to happen. After doing a massive water change to bring it down to around 10ppm I decided I needed to change my system. So I went with twice a week dosing of macros. I feed my fish daily, and fish load is moderate, so there is contribution from there as well. As an example, I dose 1/4tsp of NO3 twice a week to my 50 gallon tanks. It maintains the NO3 levels in the 15-20ppm range.
> 
> One more thought for you. You say you're growing Tonina belem which means you must have relatively soft waters. Generally speaking, you can get by with lower levels of macros in soft water as opposed to having harder waters. Therefore, imo, you're overdosing.
> 
> My 2 cents.


Thank you, that makes perfect sense. 
After my Belem's reacted like this for the second time I figured there was something really wrong, then I checked into toxic level in plants and read that it was possible. I brought it up on a forum and I think people thought I was stupid.. I never got a response about the issue. Most people just give one simple answer, dose more..
Thank you for taking the time to help with my this more detailed issue.

My kH is 3 and my GH is 5

Here's my new dosing schedule I'm going to try:
Does this look like a better schedule for my setup in your opinion?
*27 Gallons of water*
*General 7 Day Dosing Guideline for High light and well planted 29 gallon aquarium.*
*¼ tsp KN03 **3x a week** =**Friday, Monday-**Gives 7.8 per dose - **Target 10-20ppm*
*1/32 tsp KH2P04 **2x a week** =**Friday, Monday**Gives 1.2 per dose - **Target 0.5-2.0ppm*
*1/16 tsp K2S04 **1x a week** =**Friday **Gives 6.92 per dose - **Target 10-20ppm*
*1/16 tsp CSM+B **2x a week** =**Saturday, Wednesday**Gives 0.17 of Iron per dose - **Fe Target 0.1ppm*
*1/32 tps Iron**2x a week **=**Saturday, Wednesday**Gives 0.13 per dose - **Target - 0.1ppm*
*45% weekly water change =** Thursday*


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## Jag1980 (Aug 1, 2008)

Here is my Belem's after doing the IE dosing:
Not all plants are affected by this overdose in my tank, but some are extra sensitive to these conditions like my Belem's and some Crypts.


























Here's what my Belem's looked like for over 6 months with a much lighter dosing:


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## Bert H (Mar 2, 2004)

Sounds reasonable, though I still believe you have room to drop the third NO3 dose if you need to. Crypts don't like change, so don't be surprised if they melt on you. If they do, just let them be, and they will return. (Of course you'll have to clean up the meltdown)


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