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UGh! GW! A constant Battle!

2K views 10 replies 5 participants last post by  CardBoardBoxProcessor 
#1 ·
:mad: :mad: :mad: :mad: :mad: :mad: :mad: :mad: :mad: :mad: :mad: :mad:

I have green water..
It will not go away..
I do water changes..
But it is here to stay.
I do not add ferts
I do not add Co2
The duckweed is dying
And green water is thriving.
Oh my gosh.
I feel like crying..


It is n my 55 gallon in the basement with 9 cores of two species, 9 Black skirt Tetras, 3 Koolie loaches, 1 otto catfish, and a partridge in a pear tree. The GW, I don’t know why it is there and I don’t know why it will not go away.
 
#2 ·
Water changes made my GW worse... and it took "weeks" to notice a change for the worse. I have just under 2WPG, and I did NOTHING and finally after over a month of being patient, I cheated I tried the clumping water clarifier ---that did nothing - as some claim success with it. Then I resorted to algae fix. Within 2 hours the water was cloudy white, and the next morning it was crystal clear. It's been about 3 weeks now w/no recurrance.

FYI, some say this algaefix from "petco" has copper sulfate or something like that in it... it does not. See the MSDS, although I DO NOT KNOW, if its alternate ingredients are better or worse.

Anyway, plants are still alive, fish are normal. Greenwater is gone. I cheated, and am happy I did.

Love the poem...
 
#4 ·
Well, what kind of lighting do you have on the 55 gallon tank? If you're hitting around 2WPG+ on it, you'll probably have to fertilizer and/or add CO2 to prevent any future algae blooms. GW is caused by an ammonia spike...did you stir up the substrate much when you did a WC or anything to start the outbreak?

Do a blackout. I was skeptical of doing a blackout for my two 10 gallon tanks...4 days later, it's almost gone. The water is still kind of cloudy, but I hope it'll clear up soon.
 
#6 ·
Rent a diatom filter from your LFS (or if you can't rent, borrow from a friend or buy one). The HOT Magnum is fine - Vortex if you want something faster. Set up, charge with DE and run for 45min-1 hour. GW no more! Mine hasn't been back since.
 
#10 ·
A 9 or 18 watt UV would probably use about $3 worth of electricity a year. The money you'll spend replacing the plants that may die in a blackout would almost equal the cost of a UV.

DE is Diatomacious Earth. It is the powder that you put into a vortex filter that actually does the filtering. Just like the powder used in pool filters.
 
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