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Green water

4K views 11 replies 7 participants last post by  tophat665 
#1 ·
Last week while I was away on vacation my brother thought he would clean the rocks at the bottom of our 65 gal tank by stirring it all up, it turned the water cloudy green, I have changed the filter and it hasn't helped at all. A friend told me to empty out 1/4 of the water and add fresh water and change the filter again and it should clear up in a few days. Will this work, or does anyone have any suggestions?
 
#4 ·
do u use filter floss or just ur regular cartrigages ... ometimes stuff is to small for even the cartridges but the filter flosswill pick it up. jut get some a change it daily til the green stuff goes away ... or u could simply get a diatom filter wich is way more expensive
 
#6 ·
If it had been a long time since a good gravel vac all it is excess nutrients that the algae is now thriving on. Once the nutrients level back out the green water will go away. I deal with it every time I pull up all my plants and disturb the root tabs that I forgot I put in. Once they break up and settle back into the substrate the tank turns clear again. It takes about 2 weeks for everything to get back to normal. 40-50% water changes 1-2 times a week will help to get the levels back to normal a little faster.

Just be careful; if it gets too bad the fish could suffer from lack of oxygen. Might want to keep an airstone and air pump handy just in case you ever see them gasping for air.
 
#8 ·
The basics are always the same, something is causing it happen. As long as there is no direct sunlight there has be a reason why the algae is growing so fast. Yes, a UV sterilizer will kill it but it does not solve the problem. Is the same for getting fish to take care of algae instead of finding out the cause and correcting it.

The water changes are the best way to reset the tank. My tank is starting to clear up even though I have not stopped dosing the exact same amount I did before. Therefore the cause in my tank was when I removed the majority of the faster growing plant mass. Now that I have put Wisteria back in and my Primrose is starting to take off again the green water is going away and should be gone in less than 2 weeks total. And I have only been doing weekly 50-60% water changes. I could probably get rid of it in a day or two with 3-4 water changes but why stress out the fish more than I have to.
 
#9 ·
My suggestion would be the water change, filter change (remove carbon and), low lighting, and add something called Algone. It's an all natural "plant in a pouch" basically, nothing chemical. It works great. Keep up on water and filter changes and you should be ok in a week or so.
 
#12 ·
Another thing you can do if you have failry good lighting is to float duckweed, frogbit, salvina, pennywort, or watersprite on top of the tank. Any of them will soak up lots of the nutrients that the algae is feeding on, and any of them will, in an nutrient rich environment, cut off most of the light to the water column, and starve the algae of that resource too. Course, if you pick duckweed, you'll have a hell of a time getting rid of it when it's time, but any of the others should work just as well - they just cost more.

But 1) do water changes, and 2) Run an airstone at night. I lost a half dozen fish in an algae bloom when I disturbed my substrate too abruptly. Running the air would have helped a lot.
 
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