How do i keep clean water?

Twistersmom

Is that test result from your tank water using the jugs of water? Do you mix jugs with tap or only use the jug water?

RascalGoneWild

I only used the jug water. but that test is straight out of the tank itself

Byron

Mikaila31 is quite correct, you should not change the filter media pads until they literally are falling apart. The purpose of the pad is twofold, to provide a large area for bacteria to colonize and to remove particulate matter from the water as it passes through. The pad should be rinsed when necessary, i.e., in order to keep the water flow constant and not clogged. Only replace the pad when it no longer does its job because it is dinintegrating. The water has to be able to flow through the pad and not around it or through holes, etc.

Byron

I think this is the source of your green water. Nitrates at 40 is high, and a pH of 8.4 is high (and for a betta, cory, pleco and loach). Coupled with the light that was on for 12 hours a day, and no live plants, this is certain to allow algae to thrive.

Is the pH of the bottled water you use also 8.4? Or is there something in this tank (calcium-base gravel, rocks) raising it this high? It may turn out that your tap water at 7.8 would be far better, as a pH of 8.4 is likely (though not always) to be combined with hardness as well. Also wondering if there are nitrates in the bottled water, you might want to test it.

Nitrates should be reduced to 10ppm as this would eliminate some of the "food" for the algae causing the green water. Others have mentioned this earlier. Live plants help, and regular (at least once a week) partial water changes of 1/3 the tank volume.

The nitrite reading is also a problem. In an established tank, ammonia and nitrite should remain "0". I suspect this is due to changing the filter media so much; as someone poiinted out, this creates mini-cycles every time. In a larger aquarium with more bacteria on surfaces in the aquarium than in the filter this would not be an issue, but not in a 10g with no plants.

RascalGoneWild

I used the tap water and i added the AquaSafe to it and i'm gonna try that out and see how that works. Umm. i do have a gravel on the bottom but now that i know all this i will be keeping up with it better and more often. i will also not change the filter cartridge so much too. i also lowerd the light to 8 hours instead of 12. i also added this stuff called AmQuel plus for the Nitrate. i will do another water test tomorrow to see if things have gotten any better. it already looks a lot clearer. and i will look into this Duckweed stuff too. So we will see. By the way thank you guys so much for all the wonderful help with this. it means a lot to me but mostly my fish :)