The Planted Tank Forum banner

green water, would this work

683 views 3 replies 3 participants last post by  Postal Penguin 
#1 ·
So I recently upgraded my lights from 3x26w cfl to 4x21w T5NO and now I have massive green water, I was thinking about going out and buying 3xUV cfls would that work to kill off this algae I have already turned off my lights and stoopped dosing
 
#2 ·
I have two T5NOs and when I did the switch to them I got green water too. I just did a big water change, blacked out the tank for about three days (no food or light), and I cleaned my filter (in the aquarium water of course). Anyway after all that it went away. I had been thinking of buying a UV sterilizer for my tank at that time but I'm glad I didn't. Waste of money because it's easily fixable. Oh and make sure it's not getting a lot of sunlight. That could cause green water too. GOOD LUCK!
 
#4 ·
UV only penetrates a few inches of water and UV sterilizers are designed to put water in direct, close contact with the bulb for maximum killing power. Just regular UV CFLs wont be all that efficient.

Also, what wavelength of UV do the bulbs emit? Depending on the wavelength you could get severe eye damage and skin problems so its not something I would want to bathe my tank in. If the bulb emits UVA(typical black light bulbs) it wont do much of anything except deprive the algae of light.
 
This is an older thread, you may not receive a response, and could be reviving an old thread. Please consider creating a new thread.
Top