# Water hyacinth killed green water algae in 2 days



## sb483 (May 29, 2006)

For several weeks now my 55-gallon tank has been plagued with green water; none of the measures described in the algae chapter of Ecology made the green water go away (though I didn't have any water lettuce I could use). Finally I added *one *water hyacinth plant to the tank. The green water cleared after two days.

You might wonder how a single water hyacinth plant could do that. Well here's the answer:








(this is how big they get in the small pond I have outside)

Just to repeat, not a single measure (vinegar to keep pH down, diffusing light, etc.) did the job that this plant did in 48 hrs.


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## epicfish (Sep 11, 2006)

Holy cow. lol. That's a huge hyacinth.


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## snowy (Jun 6, 2006)

Impressive! Do you plan on keeping the hyacinth in the tank for long? If so it will be interesting to see how well it does, as no doubt it will be getting less light than it would in the pond.
I've never had much luck keeping them indoors, but then again I don't have such a nice big window near any of my tanks. Salvinia, on the other hand, does quite well under just fluros. Good luck with it.


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## Lawrence Lee (Jul 17, 2004)

Hyacinths need plenty of lights, in excess if 5wpg is good. Otherwise leaves start to rot after a month. 

They're great at sponging off ammonia. I think nothing beats a big healthy hyacinth in sponging up the ammonia, which is the primary cause of green water.

When I was a kid, we fed our pigs chopped up hyacinths mixed with swill collected from the neighbourhood. They put out pretty purple flowers.


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## schaadrak (Aug 18, 2006)

Unfortunately, water hyacinths are illegal to possess where I live, since they spread like crazy, and I think water lettuce is, too. If your caught with them, it's a several thousand dollar fine. The zoo here in Jacksonville actually had a special allowance to grow them for a while to soak up waste in the exhibits, but they've stopped doing that now.



Lawrence Lee said:


> ...When I was a kid, we fed our pigs chopped up hyacinths mixed with swill collected from the neighbourhood. They put out pretty purple flowers.


The pigs, or the hyacinths?


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## Lawrence Lee (Jul 17, 2004)

Their ability to grow and spread is because they are able to sponge up the ammonia. No wonder they are banned. Weekly we can harvest half the pond, (which is half an olympic pool's size) and yet never run out of the plant. As a kid, I never wondered why.


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## dwalstad (Apr 14, 2006)

Very impressive! I like your ingenuity. It is the aerial advantage used to good advantage.  

Green water can be really tough to get rid of. I've had tanks where I had to battle it for weeks. The problem is that the plants can't really take hold in this situation. Floating plants are sometimes the only "ecological solution".

I usually don't recommend equipment, but a UV sterilizing filter will promptly take care of green water. The UV light kills the algae cells as they pass through the filter. It should take care of green water in a couple days.


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## krisw (Jan 31, 2005)

Great post! I've used red-root-floater quite extensively to soak up extra nutrients in my tanks. I almost think you ought to leave the water hyacinths in permanents, simply for the "coolness" factor. ;-)


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## sb483 (May 29, 2006)

Thanks everyone for the comments!
Crystal-clear water is so refreshing after that long period of green water that I took another photo:


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## Stargazer53 (Oct 12, 2006)

Wow....that's amazing. What a difference!


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## morphriz (Oct 24, 2005)

Another ecological method is FW clams. They filter the water for phytoplankton and the greenwater algae is yummy for them. When the problem is over one has to either return the clam to it's pond or stream or feed it phyto else it will starve and die.
cheers Mattias


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## essabee (Oct 11, 2006)

schaadrak said:


> Unfortunately, water hyacinths are illegal to possess where I live, since they spread like crazy, and I think water lettuce is, too. If your caught with them, it's a several thousand dollar fine. The zoo here in Jacksonville actually had a special allowance to grow them for a while to soak up waste in the exhibits, but they've stopped doing that now.
> 
> The pigs, or the hyacinths?


Naturally the pigs, you dimwit!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!


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## Lawrence Lee (Jul 17, 2004)

morphriz said:


> Another ecological method is FW clams. They filter the water for phytoplankton and the greenwater algae is yummy for them.


The failing of using FW clams is similar to using UV or blackout to rid tank of Greenwater (GW). It removes the symptoms without addressing the cause. That can become unhealthy for the tank's fauna.

GW is primarily the result of excess ammonia based compounds in the water. In a fully cycled, established planted tank, there is supposed to be unreadable levels of ammonia, but if you did some uprooting of plants and failed to do a big water change, the ammonia that is unearthed can be a cause of GW.

This can be addressed with methods such as UV, blackout, freshwater clams, etc, because the source of excessive ammonia is temporary. A waterchange will dilute whatever leftover ammonia to negligible levels and the UV/blackout/clams take out whatever GW spores remaining in the water.

However, if excess ammonia is the result of overstocking, poor filtration, immature filter, and you employ the above methods to destroy the GW algae, what you effectively have done is to remove the ammonia sponge, therefore opening the inhabitants to poor water quality, and a repeat episode of GW when the UV/FW clam/Blackout treatment is over.

So it is better to treat the problem first. If it is poor filtration, clean and renew some of the filter media, add more biohome or efisubstrat.

Lower the bioload if tank is overstocked. Give away some fish.

If you have an immature filter, be patient. Seed your filter with some mulm from an established tank to speed up the cycling process then use some zeolite to soak up the ammonia for an immediate short term measure.

In the meantime, plant even more plants because plants eat ammonia as food. Emergent plants like water lettuce and hyacinth are good because they are not limited by CO2, being able to take it in directly from the air and so it's like a turbocharged ammonia removing machine.

When the ammonia level is neutralised, you can be sure the GW is beaten once for all.

Did you know that some fancy goldfish breeders WORK to get greenwater for their fish? Guess why?

Ammonia is bad for the fish, and Goldfish are plant eating machines that poop a lot. With no viable long-term way to manage the excessive ammonia, greenwater is employed to take up the ammonia and give the fish healthy living conditions! It may look ugly in a planted tank, but it helps your fish have beter living conditions. So do be careful how you get rid of it.


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## wiste (Feb 10, 2006)

> Another ecological method is FW clams.


I thought the downside to freshwater clams was that their larvae are parasitic on the gills of fish. Prioir to reading about the parasitic young stage, I had consider adding them to a sump.


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## krisw (Jan 31, 2005)

> I thought the downside to freshwater clams was that their larvae are parasitic on the gills of fish


 This depends on the type of clam. I've kept some small asiatic clams that don't have this larvae stage.



> When the problem is over one has to either return the clam to it's pond or stream or feed it phyto else it will starve and die.


I have to address one this. NEVER put anything from your aquarium back into your local waterways once it's been in the tank, regardless of whether your originally pulled it from there or not. The bacteria, plants, algae, possible diseases/parasites, etc that might be clinging to fauna/water are different in your tanks than they are in your local river. By throwing them back in, you are potentially introducing something devastating. Will this happen everytime, no, but it only takes once. Sorry for the rant.


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## wiste (Feb 10, 2006)

> This depends on the type of clam. I've kept some small asiatic clams that don't have this larvae stage.


That would be ideal. Sorry if this is going off topic but which type of clam and where did you get the clams.


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## Bizarroterl (Oct 15, 2006)

essabee said:


> Naturally the pigs, you dimwit!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!


:fish: :doh:

Be careful when you call someone names. It reflects on you.


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## schaadrak (Aug 18, 2006)

Bizarroterl said:


> :fish: :doh:
> 
> Be careful when you call someone names. It reflects on you.


It was all in good fun. It takes more than that to ruffle my feathers/fins. No offense taken.


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## morphriz (Oct 24, 2005)

wiste said:


> I thought the downside to freshwater clams was that their larvae are parasitic on the gills of fish. Prioir to reading about the parasitic young stage, I had consider adding them to a sump.


After abit of looking around I think there need be some but not much concern for this. I found some references to clams with this behaviour but only one case of it actually happening. eNaturalist: Reap What Ye Sow

If it does happen, it's not much of a nuisance to the fish. The glochidia, larvae, attach themselfes to fish and does feed on them but mostly use the fish for transport. In other worlds for a healty well fed aquarium fish this will not be much of an issue. But of course there are better, read risk free, methods for removing greenwater algae.

I live in sweden and the local environment can only support tropical organisms for a short time in the summer and then only above the thermocline in small lakes. Tropical parasite, though they may survive a while, do not have a winter dormant stage. It's of course still not wise to move clams from our aquariums to the lake. 
cheers
Mattias


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