what's causing the green water?
 

my friend's dad's tank has green water. I checked salinity, ammonia, nitrate and PH and they are all fine, but his water is completely green. he has a 55 gal tank with a cpr bakpak skimmer, a DSB and some LR. what would cause this green water???

algae feeds on phosphates in the water........tap water is full of phosphates so make sure u dont do any water changes using tap water.....a UV sterilizer is a great usually permanant solution for green water, it kills any free flowing algae (the green), as well as free flowing parasites....good investment

UV will reduce or remove the green water, and I would test your tap water if the green is persistent.
I also think it's most important to look at the cause, Is it the water? Photoperiod (how long are the lights on), Is the tank new? Does he have the right lights or are they $2 homedepot cool whites! Is he overfeeding? Is it getting allot of direct/indirect sunlight? Any of these, or a combination could be the cause. Has he made any recent changes? Through process of elimination you may solve the root of the problem.
If you do use a UV, monitor your fish as you may need to add temporary airstones or do additional water changes as the possible initial mass die off of the algae could cause low oxygen, killing your fish.

Had a green tank last year, used a UV filter, phosphate remover and Clams to consume some of the green. High phosphates seemed to fuel the outbreak.

It finally cleared up after 6 weeks or so, but I struggled alone for awhile. If I had posted quicker I would have saved some grief.

dont do any water changes!!!.......u would be literally feeding the algae and making it worse.......i dont understand what it would have to do with the oxygen levels....some people, like me, keep the sterilizer running all the time and never have any problems with the oxygen levels, as long as there is breakage at the suface of the water to create the oxygen exchange, there aint any problems concerning that....lighting is also a factor in green water after the phosphate level........its good to cover ur tank and leave the lights off when using a chemical to treat the water, but with a uv, i dont think thats necessary because there so effective.

Check you Carbon. Is it for saltwater or freshwater use. If you don't use carbon. Follow the above advice. DO not use the freshwater ones on saltwater. Can cause green water.

carbon is carbon, i dont think there is a difference between fresh and saltwater carbon.......

I believe, if memory serves, there was a post on this board a while ago about someone who had green tank for months and was about to give up when he checked and saw that he was using freshwater carbon. He changed it and everything cleared up almost immediately.

maybe she did somethin else, but decided it was the carbon that made the difference, i mean,i guess i could be wrong, but it just doesnt make any sense to me, and ive been around a long time and never heard of anything like that

u would usually have to change carbon every 2 months, so if she had the tank for months with green water, changin it wouldnt of made a difference cuz the carbon would have been chemically drained

I believed they kept changing the carbon, but using the same freshwater carbon. But who knows. Just something to check if phosphates are not the culprit. Doesn't hurt to give extra information as long as your not reaching information overload.

Yes, I've never heard of there being FW vs. SW carbon. It might be marketed that way, but G.A.C. is just carbon.....works in any water.

What, you guys or going to make me dig for an ancient article. Alright, I'll search.

yeah......it is good to get extra info, but if u dont believe that info in correct, its ok to say so, it is a message board

search away :biggrin: Remember, if the at=rticle is too ancient, we'll discount it as too old.
Carbon can be a concern as some leach various compounds, and some carbon can be fine tuned to adsorb particular things, but they all work in any water.

good job brad, hehe

yeah, unless he proves me wrong. Then I'm just an idiot :biggrin:

Seriously though, certain carbons may have an affinity to more of compound X in FW vs SW, but carbon is just a charged substrate that adsorbs other charged compounds to it's surface.

That was me. I unwittingly substituted the wrong carbon - same brand, but labelled "for freshwater use ONLY." Big duh! Apparently one of the additives that made it so marketable for FW was a ticking phosphate BOMB.

Even with totally green water, I registered elevated phosphate levels. After running the phosphate sponge, etc as mentioned above, it started to clear within days. The clams actually seemed to help too.

I can't get the thread up, as it's too old now. But there was a TON of advice and within a couple of weeks the tank was nice and clear.

Alright guys, I deserve something for that. Thanks Alan.

Chris

An honourable mention maybe? I started a thread with Randy on this to get a chemist's opinion.
Also, here is a link for some carbon answers.
http://www.calgoncarbon.com/faq/FAQSnew.htm


We now return to our regular programming instead of highjacking yet another thread!!

Thanks for the advice. I got him to walk me through a daily routine and I think the first problem is that he is feeding the fish way too much and next, His lights are on about 16 hours a day (NO power glo bulbs). I am going to turn off his lights for a couple of days, run some phosphate remover for a day and see where that leads us.

Doh.. didn't see the other thread.. sorry for being the 4th hijacker LOL

Steve

Hey, take this to the FW SW carbon thread, you hijacker!!

To Mikey_918, Yes you are correct he shouldn't do water changes BEFORE treatment, but read the qoute again.

If the algae content is very dense, the algae competes with the fish for oxygen. This can also cause PH swings (more of an issue in ponds). If he were to use an Algacide, or a good uv, there is a possibility that when all the algae die in a short time period it can cause problems. A bacterial bloom feeding on the dead algae again compete for oxygen. This is usually not a concern if it is a mild algae bloom.

Of course if you run a UV all the time and there is only minor algae within the aquarium this situation will never arise.

I would strongly recommend against the use of any algacides, cure the cause, not the effect.

Good luck ganowicki, overfeeding I find is almost always at the root or part of the most water quality problems.

I had a terrible greenwater problem with my first tank. Tried carbon, tried phosphate sponge, even tried rotifers which are supposed to be able to eliminate an entire pond of greenwater in days, but nothing worked. It went on for two months. Finally, as a last resort, I did a 100% water change, which in retrospect was a little too radical...

Anyway I discovered that I had had a couple of turbo snails die and foul the water, and the nitrate spike caused the green water. The spike never registered on my tests as the nitrate was converted to very aggressive phytoplankton instantly.

After the water change, no more problem. But the water change killed a couple of my inhabitants.

I did some reading after that- apparently with a huge spike in your nitrogen cycle, you can get the greenwater before the spike really registers.

green water has disapeared :biggrin: :biggrin: I believe it was from the overfeeding. Thanks for everything