# green water adventure



## gropzilla (Apr 27, 2006)

So I've been having a slowly increasing green water problem in my new 30g natural tank. It's about 3.5 weeks old now. I had an initial nitrate spike, followed by a nitrite spike, but both have dived down to 0 after a water change I did in the second week. Ammonia has maintained pretty much at .25 ppm. Also following that water change was the increasing cloudiness of the water, which has gotten greener and greener to the point where it's hard to see 12 inches to the back of the tank clearly. The duckweed has also taken off, and I haven't hindered it, it's now a bona fide mat. The red tiger lotus has become huge, it's got many floating leaves and some enormous submerged ones. The water sprite is also quite large, it has reached the surface, but despite my constant cheering for it from behind the tank glass it hasn't become emergent yet. The wisteria and the pennywort are also close to reaching the surface, I'll let them grow emergent if possible. 

I have some ideas about how to proceed, but I thought I would post them here and get some contructive criticism.

First, I have put some activated carbon in the filter, and changed the photoperiod from one 12 hour period to two 5 hour periods with a two hour break in between. These measures so far seem to have had little effect. I have 2.5 watts/g in cool white flourescent, and i thought about removing one of the three 25 watt bulbs. However, the light is suspended 4-5 inches above the aquarium, the duckweed shields much of it out, and in her book Diana says "in some instances, reducing light levels in a planted tank would hurt planst more than algae. This is because the light requirements of aquatic plants are often greater than those of many algae, especially 'green water' algae."

I'm thinking the way to go here is to get some daphnia for the tank. The only fish right now are three cories and two otos, I'm thinking they probably wouldn't eat the daphnia? Later I plan to add some other fish, maybe some dwarf gouramis or tetras, these would probably finish off the daphnia, and I could wait till they are done with the green water to introduce them. If the daphnia manage to hang on, even better. 

My question is this - if the green water is caused by an excess nutrient flood from the recently submerged soil, would allowing the daphnia to finish off the green water right now just create further imbalance and possibly open the door for some other algae type to take off? Am I better off just waiting things out, hoping more of my plants will become emergent and start outcompeting the green water? Also, how much duckweed is too much duckweed? It's already too much for my girlfriend, it keeps popping up in odd places around the house when it gets stuck to me.  

Sorry for the long-windedness, I wanted to share the big picture.

Ben


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## erik Loza (Feb 6, 2006)

Do some water changes?


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## gropzilla (Apr 27, 2006)

erik - yeah i probably should have mentioned that i have done some water changes. I certainly will continue to do them, but so far they seem to have no impact. I'm doing about 20-25% around twice a week so far.


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## Laith (Sep 4, 2004)

There is a theory that ammonia can trigger green water. And you have 0.25 mg/l of ammonia.

I'm puzzled that your nitrogen cycle seems to have gone backwards (Nitrate - nitrite - ammonia instead of the other way around).

Could be that your soil is leaching ammonia into the water? I wouldn't add any new fish until that ammonia level is brought to zero...

Just my two cents... keep in mind that I know next to nothing about Diana's natural method!


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## DataGuru (Mar 11, 2005)

In my little 2.5 gallon bowfront I had green water back when it was fairly new. I used e tenelus and crypts and didn't add many floating plants at first. I had one betta and some nerite snails in it. so I added a bunch of daphnia. It took them a while, but they finally ate all the suspended algae (I added more daphnia from time to time cuz the betta was munching on some of them). then as the green water cleared (lack of food for the daphnia), the betta ate them. Then the green water came back. so this time I added some fast growing floaters (najas grass and hornwort) along with the daphnia and it hasn't come back this time around. The fast growing floaters are most likely sucking up the extra nutrients.


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## dwalstad (Apr 14, 2006)

gropzilla said:


> My question is this - if the green water is caused by an excess nutrient flood from the recently submerged soil, would allowing the daphnia to finish off the green water right now just create further imbalance and possibly open the door for some other algae type to take off? Am I better off just waiting things out, hoping more of my plants will become emergent and start outcompeting the green water? Also, how much duckweed is too much duckweed? It's already too much for my girlfriend, it keeps popping up in odd places around the house when it gets stuck to me.
> 
> Ben


If you've got a source of Daphnia, I'd definitely give these cute little critters a try. That could do the trick while your tank is getting established and soil is releasing nutrients. There's nothing wrong with this kind of tinkering to give plants 'the edge" they need right now to outcompete algae.

Also, I hope that you are harvesting the duckweed so that nutrient uptake continues. If the duckweed covers the entire surface, that's good but don't let it start getting too thick a layer.

As to Water Sprite. I can't get it to grow in my tanks unless I root it in soil. I hope that tiger lotus has sent up some lily pads.

As to ammonia, I suspect the test kit is off. It's possible (but highly improbable in a planted tank) that ammonia would register if nitrites and nitrates are zero.

You could try lowering the lighting a little. If submerged plants are in a green soup, they're not going to get much light, anyway. 

Daphnia, emergent/floating plants and a little patience are, in my opinion, your best bets.


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## gropzilla (Apr 27, 2006)

Laith - i agree that the ammonia is puzzling. I'm beginning to think that as Diana said the test kit may be off, since it sometimes seems to be neither of the colors on the strip, 0 or .25, but somewhere in between. I will have to get a different brand and check it out. Was trying to err on the side of caution.

Betty - That's just the sort of experience I was wondering if I would have. Thanks for describing it for me. 

Diana - The watersprite is rooted, but it's branches so far don't seem interested in breaching the water surface, just bending back. The Tiger Lotus does have about 6 or 7 lilly pads now, with many more on the way. I don't really have a daphnia sourece per se, but couldn't I just order a culture and add it to the tank? with all that green water, the daphnia should have a little party right? It might not be necessary, but now that i've been reading about them i'm kind of curious and want to add them. 

Thanks for the advice everyone!


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## DataGuru (Mar 11, 2005)

Oh yea, that would be fine, tho with cultures it's best to split them, so if one crashes, you'll have the other to work with. I ordered my daphnia from Dallas Discus and they're still going strong.


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## gropzilla (Apr 27, 2006)

Thanks Betty, I was wondering about a good source, I'll have to check out Dallas Discus. Actually, the green water seems to be clearing up a bit the past few days, and it's weird but I'm almost disappointed since I haven't yet tried the daphnia. I guess I could still go for it, but it will take more effort on my part if the green water goes away on it's own.


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## Capt. (Nov 24, 2004)

gropzilla, you might be interested to hear my green water story. I've been battling it for quite a while. At first I just tried to add nutrients in hopes that the plants would be able to outcompete the green water. That didn't work.

The next thing I tried was a complete blackout. I did this for over 3 days and did a 50% water change after. It helped a lot. Unfortunately, I broke my ankle at this time and couldn't keep doing more water changes to get rid of while I had the advantage.

I decided it was time to try daphnia. Yesterday I got a ton of them from a local guy. He gets daphnia, bloodworms, and other various critters in his pool liner. I dumped 3 large scoops of them into the tank, there must have thousands. The difference is amazing. I can see through the tank end to end the long ways. When I added the daphnia the green water was not very thick, I could see the back of the tank but definitely not end to end.

Your cories will eat the daphnia. I know this because the guy who gave them to me says he feeds them to his cories and they love them. My cardinal tetras are eating them. Depending on how many you can get, this could be a problem. If you can move the fish for a few days, that would work. Otherwise I suggest you leave some out of the tank and try to give them some green water to keep them alive. Or you could try to make some type of cage.


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## DataGuru (Mar 11, 2005)

a breeder net works well, cept some fish will suck the daphnia thru the net.


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