Green Water!

[luisprado]

What do I do to get rid of green water, and how did I get it? This is the first time I have ever had green water.

[DIY]

Some of the more experienced members on this forum will be able to help, but I'll start off with what I know and they can add more (or correct me :oops: ) later.

Green water is just an algae bloom, algae needs the following to survive & do well.

Light - Is your tank near a window or such and getting natural light, this contributes to algae growth. how many lights do you have? for low - medium light most run around the 1-2 watts per gallon. Too much will promote algae growth. also ensure you keep the lights on for a maximimum of 10-12 hours a day.
Often you can ""black-out" your tank for say 2-3 days by leaving the light off and placing a blanket over the tank, this will starve the algae. Of course if you have plants be wary as they may suffer as well.

Nitrate / Ammonia - Are you doing enough water changes? - check your ammonia & nitrate. My understanding is that Algae will certainly use nitrate as food. Discus don't like too much nitrate in the water anyway so I'd do some large water changes to make sure you have as close to 0 nitrate as you can and keep up the waterchanges so it stays close to 0.

Phospate is plant and algae food, you might need to check your water supply and see if it already has phosphate in it. I'm not sure what in your tank might produce it - anyone?. but I understand if you restrict it then algae will struggle to get hold. Plant fertiliser has phostphates and so does some ph buffers so check what chemicals you are adding to the tank.

And finally, if you do have plants then the algae is taking away the food plants need, you may need to add some fast growing plants to try to "compete" for the food before algae takes hold. What worked for me in my 10g guppy tank I had green water problems in, was a piece of driftwood with java moss on it. I have to trim it regularly because it grows like crazy, but no more green water.

HTH :)

[kalebjarrod]

do 50% water changes every day till it goes

diyjunkie was right, its just a alge bloom

turn of the lights and do water changes

that should get rid of it

if not, then do the blaket trick as well...

[jim]

A big UV unit can certainly help

[kalebjarrod]

that will do the trick as well! :wink:

[DeKa]

Large UVC's using Philips lamps certainly do work very well. Sorry to say but we've sold out of our Hozelock Cyprio Vorton 9000 units at the special price - they're back to the normal price of $326 now.

The Vorton 18000 (basically two 9000's linked together) is still on special though ;)
http://www.rockaroundtheblock.com.au/categories.asp?cID=12

Derek.