# Cloudy water to greenish water



## fishtastico (Feb 28, 2007)

Just when I thought I had everything under control....

I don't have any test kits (and don't get paid again until next week.. so I'm out of luck til then) - so I've been winging it on the ferts (and following the guidelines for dosing here)

About 3-4 weeks ago, I started adding ferts. It's a 40 breeder, with a full and lush glosso "lawn", heminathus, alternanthera, mayaca, rotala, 3 crypts, some java fern, wisteria, and ludwigia sp. C02 being added about 1-2 bubbles per second. For the first week, I was adding 1/2 tsp. of KN03 (potassium nitrate) and about 1/16 - 1/8 tsp of monopotassium phosphate, 3 times per week. I was also adding 1 capful of fluorish "trace" and 1/2 capful of fluorish "iron" twice per week.

Lights: 96watt power compact fluorescent dual daylight bulbs (6700K and 10000K)

Trim on Saturday. Big water change on Sunday. Repeat.

I started to develop slimey green hair algae on the glosso lawn, and BBA on the alternanthera.

I cut back on the ferts slightly and added Fluorish Excel with the next big waterchange.

I didn't change my C02.

I cut off the leaves that had the bba on it, and picked off as much of the green slime as I could. It stopped coming back. Just when I thought I was out of the woods, the water started to get milky. Then cloudy. Now it's white/murkey with a tinge of green. I added Purigen last weekend and it doesn't seem to have done any good.

I'm going to blame this on excessive mucking about in the tank, and too much trimming all at once.

Is a 3 day blackout going to nuke my beautiful alternanthera ? Are there any other suggestions other than "buy a UV sterilizer"?? My plants look stunning, healthy, and are bubbling up a storm but the water is so cloudy that I can't see to the back of the tank.


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## furballi (Feb 2, 2007)

Stop adding stuffs to the water column. Don't turn ON light for three days. Change 90% of the water. Clean the filter. Spot treat with hydrogen peroxide. Change 60% of the water the next day and attack more algae with the peroxide treatment. Repeat for the 3rd day. Clean the filter. Turn ON light for 4 hours. Still have algae? Continue with the 50% water change and peroxide treatment. You should gain the upper hand in about one week.


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## fishtastico (Feb 28, 2007)

I wanted to follow up to my own thread for historic purposes. (and if anyone else happens to stumble across this thread)

I didn't have algae growing on the plants, I just had a serious bloom of some variety going on.

Ultimately it took a 3 day blackout, and running a power filter with some nitrasorb and phosgard to strip everything out of the water. I started the lights up again slowly, added C02 the second day along with some Excel, and on the 3rd day I added a small dose of ferts. 

I also swapped the nitrasorb and phosgard for my recharged Purigen and some filter floss in the power filter.

Roughly 5 days later the tank looks great. The only casualty seems to be the glosso lawn which took a hit, many many yellow leaves. I do think it will come back, though. Everything else seems fine.

I honestly think that our town had been doing some water system cleaning and dumped extra dose of something or other into the water system. One of our other tanks developed a cloudy bloom for some reason and that was a low light tank with nothing but driftwood and some plecos living in it.


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