more lighting = green water?

[voodoo]

hey guys! any xpert can advise me on > does x-tra lighting result in green water problem ?

[Darkkon]

I suppose... but there are other factors involved other than lighting... sad to say i am combating a greenwater problem currently. Do a search for more previous postings. I attributed my greenwater to the adding of 50 Malayan shrimps at once, resulting in a ammonia and nitrate spike which causes the greenwater. Of course, it doesn't help that my tank is only 1 month old and i on 72W of lights for my 2ft tank about 10hrs a day.

[nbk3]

green water is caused mainly by rotting plant material + sunlight(or similar light types)

[finclk]

Bro, try what i did, i had green water algae which stayed green for too almost a week. At that time I was reading Diana Walstad's book on 'Ecology of the planted Aquarium'. Her book is a very scientific thesis backed by solid experiments n is also a collection of different aqua-botanists theories etc, so you can say her book is an unbiased one.

What I did was
1) Cover the substrate layer(sand, fert) with a black cloth/tape. Just do it, reason to explain is too long, read her book. But it's mainly to reduce the iron nutrient to algae.

2) Do not on your lights at all for one day. Remember to put air pump to compensate for oxygen loss cause no photosynthesis.

3) DO NOT ADD and liquid fert.

4) If possible, reduce ur fish load. And if possible, increase ur plants. A tank is alwaz better to be overcrowded with plants instead of fishes. More plants would suck up excess Iron which is the main nutrient algae uses and also by a process of allelopathy, combat against algae by release of offensive chemicals to algae.

5) Add more faster growing plants if possible.


All that i have said are from Diana Walstad's book. Pls try to read her book, it's a refreshing insight to the planted aquarium n debunks alot of myths... U can get it at the library.

Rgds

[robin]

Most likely it is caused by too much excess nutrient and waste in conjunction with insufficient up take by plants.

Lighting will only play a part if your have plants and CO2. Higher light with proper nutrient balance and CO2 will cause plants to uptake nutrients quickly therefore reducing your green water algae problems.

With no or little plants and too much light and nutrient imbalance, algae will bloom

Regards
Robin

[voodoo]

i'll do what u guys suggested, starting with the easiest > control nutrient. will do water change and will not add fert.maybe my nutrient is too much. update u guys the outcome.thanks

[tropic]

Iv try cutting down the light before and switchn it off in day time.Anyway i experience same like you but heading advice frim some of the forummers here, i decided to switch off the lights for abt two days and the water was clear and not green as prev.May you would like to try these basic steps first before you start messing your tanks ..

[theodore]

voodoo,

Is this the tank with the new 10000K tubes? If so, you may wish to change it back to 6500K ones. Read this

There are several ways to solve green water problem (UV sterilizer, daphnia, etc). Just do a search on "green water" to see what others before you have done.

[chua]

Hi all.

I am presently having the green water problem. Doing a blackout method at the present moment. It looks better now.

It all happens 5 days ago, when i used up my liquid fertilizer. Hence, I bought the TGM liquid fertilizer since many people in the forum said that it is good. After adding only 1.5ml (very little), the water in my 3ft tank becomes cloudy and greenish the following day.

[PeterGwee]

Don't blame the TMG for your misfortune...
Green water's trigger is basically ammonia. Have you don't any major uprooting job or added stuff like jobesticks?

[Daz]

Sorry to revive this topic again.

Me have problem with green water since I uproot some plants. thus it is a good idea to add in some more plants to get rid of the 'green water'?

I have no test kit, so unable to tell what overdose I have in my tank.

[PeterGwee]

You did some uprooting of plants but did you do a large water change after that? Stirring the substrate has cause substantial amount of ammonia to leak out to the water column which is the major cause plus the possible fact that your plants may not be growing that well. (Plants growing well remove lots of NH4/NO3 with high CO2/high light).

Do a 3-5day blackout to remove the greenwater...it does not cause you anything except that it may cause the plants to get leggy.

[Daz]

did 90% change twice already but the Green water keep coming back.

what I did now is to increase my CO2 in hope that the remaining plants will start to grow faster thus reduce the algae grow. Did I do it right?

[PeterGwee]

Do the blackout....do the blackout...do the blackout...do the blackout method.

Just in case you miss the sentence in the previous post.

[bluezing]

lol....

[vinz]

Well, you could try a blackout, sometimes it solves the problem, sometimes the GW comes back again after a few days. You have to fix the root cause of the problem, which in my experience, seems to be excess ammonia or NO3.

Figure out what's unbalanced in your tank and fix that.

Do frequent large water change... about 50% every 2 to 3 days. More then 50% and you're likely to tip the balance in your tank even furthur. After water change, dose your fertilisers.

[Daz]

got you man!!!!

question - need to using air-stone to pump in air since doing blackout???

[PeterGwee]

Stop CO2 injection, make sure no light gets in, aerate the tank or increase water circulation with the use of airpump or powerhead.

Vinz, high NO3 does not induce greenwater....I think Tom tried it before and the greenwater never show up except when he introduce just a little ammonia.

[vinz]

Well, then high NO3 during GW could be just a co-symptom of high ammonia. I.e. so much ammonia that, GW gets some, and the bacteria still gets enough to convert to NO3.

[Plantbrain]

Darkkon had it right pretty much and the common occurance.

You seldom saw GW issues before the powercompact intense lights came out.

NH4 is the cause, but it's elusive, by the time you test for it, it's gone.

But the algae has bloomed.

Once the algae blooms, you cannot limit it w/nutrients/water changes unless a very mild case of GW/low light.

I'll wait a month till you figure that one out on your own

But there are many ways to get rid of green water.
DW's book does not address CO2 enriched tanks, non CO2 tanks have much less light, iron does not limit those tanks either, no aquarist possesses testing equipment required to prove the algae are limited by iron either for that matter, iron is simply needed in such small amounts by algae to bcome truly limiting the only places iron is generally limiting is far out at sea, a long way from substrates/land and wind born dust. Plants would be long dead if the iron was that low and if there's iron in the substrate, there's enough iron for the algae.

Plants also leak nutrients right out their leaves in large amounts, oops, forgot about that one?
So even within the soil/substrate, the iron is exported out to the water column. I do not buy this notion of Fe limitation. It's speculation and some of the refences are from Saltwater phytoplankton in the middle of the ocean. How is that similar to FW systems and Fe? It's a good book and _the methods_ are sound, I don't agree with the "whys" on a number of points. She says she is guessing and is careful to word that way, just some things are possibly this or that way. Folks need to read the whole thing, not just bits and pieces. She did a wonderful job on non CO2 tanks.
Somebody had too.

To get rid of GW:
Add some extra biomedia to the filter/increase biofilter(stops NH4 from even building up should the plants not be growing well at high light, add more CO2/Check it anyway, then on down the line, NO3, PO4, K traces.

Then either use/borrow a UV, add Daphnia, diatom filtration for a few hours, blackout,
etc,

New tanks often get it, but not mine, guess it must be the mulm(bacteria) I add to all my new tank's filters and substrates.

If you have high light, blackout often will fail. UV and diatom always work and so does Daphnia if the fish don't eat them.

Hope this clears a few things up.

Regards,
Tom Barr