HELP! Kenna Green Water

[Artemis2]

Oh man.

Kenna green water in my new tank.

Any idea how it occurs, and what i can do to correct it?

Don't really want to do a blackout and kill all the plants. They are growing pretty well. Very heart pain to let them die out.

Any kind bros can lend their UV treater?

Thanks.

[wf7850]

Bro.. means something went out of balance in yr tank.... try changing water n add some 'Oceanfree Green Away'... shld help....

[fleekk]

Do not use any artificial solution to solve your green water , it will not solve it permanently.

Recall what you have done for the past 1 week, any OD on fertilising regime? Washing of filter system? Reducing of co2????? Lengthening your photo period???? Go to the root of your problem not shortcutting it.

Try this, do 50% water change, do another 50% 3 days later. Stop your fertilisation regime, check your PH/Kh. if you can add some BB powder into your filter system. Monitor a few weeks.

It should be fine.

[PeterGwee]

Its the ammonia....if you did bother to read up on things before embarking on the new tank, you should not have issues. But since its there already, what you can do is to do a blackout for 3-5 days (cheapest). Plants are fine if the initial conditions are good.

Main thing with new tanks is to add mulm (dirt) from established tanks to the filter and bottom layer of the substrate. Add loads of plants (pack them in as much as you can) and little critters till things get settle down. Give plants what they want and things should go smooth from there.

Regards
Peter Gwee

[Sleepy_lancs]

N combined with High light is the cause for Green water. Continue to add fertiliser but stop any that contains N. Monitor your N till it drops to your desired level. Usually in SG, we tend to dose too little PO4 and have a high bio load. Do not turn off the lights unless you want to blackout your tank. Never reduce the lighting hour to resolve this issue. Water change is an expensive way plus its stresses your fish.

[bubuseng]

I had green water in my new tank and solved the problem by temporary cutting the hours of lighting to bout 6 hours a day. In about 4 days the alage died and lighting resumed to 8 - 9 hrs a day. The problem has not returned.
Ya should find the source of the green water. Exposure to sunlight, increase in lighting? Try 20% water changes but not too often.

[PeterGwee]

N combined with High light is the cause for Green water.

What kind of N are we talking about here?

Continue to add fertiliser but stop any that contains N.

Again what kind of N are we talking here? It seems to me that you are talking about nitrate and not ammonia as I have seldom see folks adding that to a tank unless they want trouble. Why do you think high nitrate is the cause? Yes, high nitrate can destablize a system and cause algae growth but that is by natural means of fish load/waste (ammonia->nitrite->nitrate)) and not through the use of KNO3. I can tell you its the ammonia.

Focus on the plant growth but think ways of killing off the GW as well as getting rid of the root cause is the key. Limiting the plants by means of holding back dosage of N(Nitrate) in a high light tank environment is going to cause more issues as the plants slow down or stop growing due to limitation in the macro nutrient.

Regards
Peter Gwee

[msmurf]

hi all, i might not know the details of green water but i am very sure that blackout method works. personally i kena 2-3 times before and blackout plus water change never fail to solve my problem within a week.

[Plantbrain]

I love GW, You guys might think I'm nuts but it's one of the easiest to work pest algae.

Doesn't hurt plants, easy to get rid, extremely resistent to nutrient variations once inoculated, easy to see and quantify, likes CO2/light etc, must be 4 or more ways to get rid of it, some very easy.

UV works perhaps the best, Diatom filtration but those filter cartiuages that folks use for their RO and Drinking water supplioes also have cartiagfes that go to 1 or 5 microns which will trap the GW and remove them.

The Hagen Quick Filter cartiages cost only a few $ and are 5 microns also.
Water changes will do some damage, but it generally will come even if you do 100% change because you cannot get all of it in the gravel etc .

Daphnia and less light can help and remove it.

If you add mulm from the start of a new tank, then you don't have any cycling issues which is why folks get GW from the start generally along with poor nutrients/CO2.

The mulm adds to a plant tank precisely what is missing in a new tank.

NH4 will cause a GW outbreak in most tanks, add a little to see for yourself.

Next see if you can do the same with KNO3, I added up to 75ppm and still did not get any GW.

You can also do the same thing by adding too many fish for a given amount of plant biomass in a tank. The plant biomass has a finite amount of NH4 uptake transporters.

Beyond that, the plants will not remove any more and then the algae can use this rich source.

Having moderate light, great CO2, NO3, PO4, K, GH, traces will maximize the uptake of of NH4 and minimize the potential for algae.

Once inoculate, GW needs to be removed/killed mechanically. At lower lighting, blackouts work but if you have Gloss etc, blackouts will make your lawn look very ratty.

If you have reoccurances, add some more biomedia to the filter and double check your CO2/light/nutrients again. Consider less fish/feeding etc.

Generally folks don't have reoccurances, but in every case NH4 plays a role.

Either the plants stop taking it up due to some other nutrient issue(not enough CO2 for a high light tank, not established filter bacteria etyc,

or NH4 is added from fish/critters, rotting materials in the substrate(too much mulm accumulation), not enough biomedia etc.

Copper sulfate can also work at low levels and not kill plants, espeically crypts and Anubias.

Regards,
Tom Barr

[Sleepy_lancs]

[quote:c31e397c39="PeterGwee"]

N combined with High light is the cause for Green water.

What kind of N are we talking about here?

Continue to add fertiliser but stop any that contains N.

Again what kind of N are we talking here? It seems to me that you are talking about nitrate and not ammonia as I have seldom see folks adding that to a tank unless they want trouble. Why do you think high nitrate is the cause? Yes, high nitrate can destablize a system and cause algae growth but that is by natural means of fish load/waste (ammonia->nitrite->nitrate)) and not through the use of KNO3. I can tell you its the ammonia.

Focus on the plant growth but think ways of killing off the GW as well as getting rid of the root cause is the key. Limiting the plants by means of holding back dosage of N(Nitrate) in a high light tank environment is going to cause more issues as the plants slow down or stop growing due to limitation in the macro nutrient.

Regards
Peter Gwee [/quote:c31e397c39]

N combined with High light is the cause for Green water. Continue to add fertiliser but stop any that contains N. Monitor your N till it drops to your desired level.

Notice I said Monitor your N till it drops to your desired level. I didn't say withhold till it drop to 0. NH4 gets converted to NO3. when green water happens, usually NH4 is greater than the amount able to get converted quickly to NO3 thus free floating NH4 (large sudden increase in bioload and etc). Please do not jump the gun.

Water change frequently(ie daily) of about more than 50% was what I meant.

Perhaps I didn't clarify myself well enough. Sorry for the distress caused.

[PeterGwee]

Please do not jump the gun.

Nobody's trying to jump the gun here...What I'm trying to find out is where your point is coming from since you mention "Continue to add fertiliser but stop any that contains N.". I mention in my post that nobody adds N (Nitrogen) unless of course you are mentioning NO3 from KNO3 which will not cause green water. Your usage of the word N(can be from NH4 or NO3) can mislead new folks as they often don't know much about it. Hope that clears things up. No offence by the way...

Notice I said Monitor your N till it drops to your desired level. I didn't say withhold till it drop to 0.

Monitor N? Which form? What kind of kit? How accurate is it? You are not trying to maintain some certain level by using some kit but to determine how much your plants "eat" per week such that they do not run out of food due to lack of dosing. The fact green water comes in for some reason tells you something about the health of the plants unless you have loads of critters for a start. They are not growing well imo/ime. It is often better to reset the tank through large water changes and dose back all nutrients while selecting a way to kill off the green water.

NH4 gets converted to NO3. when green water happens, usually NH4 is greater than the amount able to get converted quickly to NO3 thus free floating NH4 (large sudden increase in bioload and etc).

The free floating NH4 is not going to be there for too long or else you will get dead critters. A minor spike in a high light tank would trigger green water off and be non-existant when a quality NH4 kit is used to measure it.

Regards
Peter Gwee

[Artemis2]

Hi Bros,

Thanks so much for the input. Been really busy, so only just saw the posts.

Did not do anything drastic to 'cause' the GW, like wash the filter, overdose etc. Tank was fine for two months, so bloom was quite sudden.

Blacked out the tank for two days, Moved another filter over, aerated the tank, and tank has since cleared up. Plants are none the worse for wear for now, although the APP is growing up a bit.

Critters are all doing fine including the shrimps. Only casualty was a couple of black balloon mollies which finally floated to the surface. Suspect they died and got stuck in the stargrass forest, and while being eaten up, may have contributed to the problem.

Will stop the blackout tomorrow and see what happens.

Once again, many thanks.[/b]