# Greg Watson Ferts and Green Water



## George02 (Jan 11, 2007)

Hi guys,

I got a major problem with green water within 2-3 days of switching to Gregg Watson's fertilizers.
I used to fertilize my 20 gallon tank with Seachem liquid ferts following their dosing schedule. I use Hagen CO2 system as the CO2 source and also add Seachem Excel.
I got a problem with green water a while ago and I fixed it by adding more of Seachem Nitrogen, that cleared green water within 3 days.
About a week ago, as I was almost running out of Seachem liquid ferts, I switched to Gregg Watson's fertilizers as they are a lot cheaper and I'm following the EI dosing schedule. To be precise, I use the schedule described for a 29 gallon tank in the EI thread.
Anyway, within 2-3 days of using Gregg Watson's ferts the tank got over-run by green water. I mean the water is so green that you can't see more than an inch into the tank, it is real bad.

So what do you guys think? Obviously, the plants are missing some kind of a nutrient that they need to out compete green water, but what is it? I'm dosing 3 major ferts as well as minor ones and I thought that purpose of EI was to overdose the tank to make sure the plants have enough food.
By the way, this is a pretty heavily planted tank and I use a 65watt light for 8 hours a day.

What do you guys think?


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## eklikewhoa (Jul 24, 2006)

*Re: Gregg Watson Ferts and Green Water*

I think you need to test your tap water or whatever water you are using.
List your bio-load.
Feeding habits.
Plant stocking.
etc.

I dosed for a 60g in my 30g which was running 192w of PC lighting and still didn't get any algae.Try cutting your ferts in half and see what that does for you.


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## George02 (Jan 11, 2007)

*Re: Gregg Watson Ferts and Green Water*



eklikewhoa said:


> I think you need to test your tap water or whatever water you are using.
> List your bio-load.
> Feeding habits.
> Plant stocking.
> ...


Test water for what? Never had any problems with the tap water in my fish tanks.
Bio-Load: I got about 20-25 guppies
Plant stocking: Can't tell you exactly how many plants, but it is a lot. The tank is heavily planted. I started out with a good amount and they grew a lot over the course of a few months, when I was using Seachem ferts.

If I cut the ferts in half, wouldn't that cause more algae, since the plants will have less nutrients?

As I said in my original post, I thought the point of EI was to over-dose to make sure the plants have enough.


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## George02 (Jan 11, 2007)

*Re: Gregg Watson Ferts and Green Water*

Anybody?


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## Squawkbert (Jan 3, 2007)

*Re: Gregg Watson Ferts and Green Water*

EI for a 29 applied to a 20 is going to be overkill, no matter how heavily planted. Cut back a bit and, if you've made liquids from your dry ferts, use Fertilator to double check your work.

I'd cut back dosing, do ~70% water changes daily for 2-3 days and do a 3-4 day blackout with them.

After ~ a week of doing the above, keep ferts additions at a steady state and do big PWCs whenever you start seeing green again. If it's all just an adjustment to the changes in ferts, it should work itself out in a week or two.

I know it's ugly, but it really doesn't hurt anything.

If you have a decent canister filter, using a fine linen handkerchief or dish towel (an old one) can help filter out a lot of the green in short order, just don't leave it in there for more than a day or two as it will start to disintegrate (being cotton and all).


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## George02 (Jan 11, 2007)

*Re: Gregg Watson Ferts and Green Water*



Squawkbert said:


> EI for a 29 applied to a 20 is going to be overkill, no matter how heavily planted. Cut back a bit and, if you've made liquids from your dry ferts, use Fertilator to double check your work.
> 
> I'd cut back dosing, do ~70% water changes daily for 2-3 days and do a 3-4 day blackout with them.
> 
> ...


I'll try the daily water changes, I normally do about a 50% weekly changes. How much should I cut back on the ferts?


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## Minsc (May 7, 2006)

*Re: Gregg Watson Ferts and Green Water*

Did you happen to rearrange some plants right before the green water started?
I've seen green water many a time and it always corresponded with the substrate being disturbed.

Best solution is to buy a cheapo UV sterilizer and drop it in the tank any time you see the water start to get cloudy.

That and making sure to do big water changes after pulling plants.


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## George02 (Jan 11, 2007)

*Re: Gregg Watson Ferts and Green Water*



Minsc said:


> Did you happen to rearrange some plants right before the green water started?
> I've seen green water many a time and it always corresponded with the substrate being disturbed.
> 
> Best solution is to buy a cheapo UV sterilizer and drop it in the tank any time you see the water start to get cloudy.
> ...


Nope, the plants weren't disturbed at all.


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## Squawkbert (Jan 3, 2007)

*Re: Gregg Watson Ferts and Green Water*

I'd cut ferts by about half. Stick to that for a couple of weeks. If needed, go up in small increments from that.


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