Green Water and Phosphates

[benanddebbie]

After my emergency room incident the 6 ft tank has gone as green as you can go. You can barely see the fish.

The phosphate level is high but we knew that before which is why we were doing a water change which sparked our emergency room incident.

What I want to do is take the discus and as many of the schooling fish that I can catch in that size tank :) and out them in a tub and then drain the tank completely and then add a whole lot of new water.

Can I should I do this or am I better off just doing small daily water changes and riding it out?

I can't stand the green tank. We have a UV on but doesn't seem to be keeping up with it particularly because the phosphate levels are high.

ANy suggestions all the water or just some?

[scott bowler]

what lighting are you running and how many
do you have a pic of your tank ?

[Merrilyn]

First thing that comes to mind, is how old is your UV.

The globe needs to be replaced every 6 months or so for it to be effective.

Other than that, you don't happen to add Seachem Neutral Regulator by any chance, to keep your pH at 7, do you.

Neutral Regulator will add phosphates to your tank.

Small water changes, and keep the light off for a while, and you soon should get on top of the algae problem.

[benanddebbie]

Well I haven't been able to get back to the forum since I posted. Thank you for your replies. HOwever......

I decide to do a complete water change. I netted out all the fish and then drained our entire 6 ft tank. I siphon the gravel numerous times let things settle as the water drained out and then siphoned the gravel again. I then stirred up the gravel to give things a thorough clean out.

I then added new water with some Prime and left it for a litltle while as things got to the same temp and Ph as the water the fish were in and then netted all the fish back in.

The fish were perfectly calm, ok and not stressed at all. Even looked a heap happier.

However.....it is now Sunday Three days after the water change and the tank is as green as.

I will get hubby to double check the UV tommorrow morning. The water we added has no phoshpates in it and we have finally come to suspect the food. May be a bad batch or something ...can't work out wher the phosphates are coming from other than that.

Will let you know re the UV. Oh yeah we runtwo metal hallides 150 W 10000K. Never had any trouble before.