[Kylesaltandpepper]

My 55g recovered from bga a bit more than a month ago after a harsh battle. Now green water came. It's been two weeks and at first I thought it was a bacterial bloom and it was going to be gone, but now I realize it's green water. The tank is still some what visible, but I can't see the other side of my tank very well. I'm not sure if the cause is from my old sponge and bio rings which were recently cleaned with aquarium water, from all the dead snails I have in my tank, or something with my water chemistry. I've been researching and everyone says water changes and blackouts don't work, only UV. I also saw that some people wait it out, but I've also seen people that had it for a two months and it didn't go away. I really don't want to spend 40 bucks on a UV. Is there any other way I could get rid of it?

 

[Nlewis]

My 55g recovered from bga a bit more than a month ago after a harsh battle. Now green water came. It's been two weeks and at first I thought it was a bacterial bloom and it was going to be gone, but now I realize it's green water. The tank is still some what visible, but I can't see the other side of my tank very well. I'm not sure if the cause is from my old sponge and bio rings which were recently cleaned with aquarium water, from all the dead snails I have in my tank, or something with my water chemistry. I've been researching and everyone says water changes and blackouts don't work, only UV. I also saw that some people wait it out, but I've also seen people that had it for a two months and it didn't go away. I really don't want to spend 40 bucks on a UV. Is there any other way I could get rid of it?

Is your tank near a window where it's getting residual light?

 

[SwampGremlin]

Uv sterilizer gone in 2 days crystal clear water. Do a good vacume

 

[Kylesaltandpepper]

Is your tank near a window where it's getting residue light?

Yes, like 3-4 meters away from it, but it's my first time having green water and it's close to a window for two years.

 

[CrypticLifeStyle]

Know anyone with a UV you can borrow for a week?

 

[Kathyy]

That sounds like my first amazing bout with green water. Now I don't remember which came first but I definitely had both one after the other.

I had zero nitrate in the water. Dosed 1/2 tsp into the 150 gallon tank every morning for 4 days and in 4 days water was crystal clear. Each morning it would be clearer then fog up a little during the day. Check nitrate, this usually isn't the reason for GW to appear but it was definitely the cause that time. That GW was so bad I couldn't see an inch into the tank and it was a big deal when I could see the back corner of the tank at all. CB can appear due to low nitrate as well, guessing it was in that case too. We will never know if dosing nitrate would have rid the tank of CB.

After that I would have some haze but not much issue. Finally got tired of allowing floaters to cover the water surface which would clear the water until next time I replanted plant groups and happened to get some better biological filter media into the sump. I chose Poret foam. Bioballs were a fail and some sort of ceramic rings dissolved after a couple years whether they worked or not they weren't worth buying again. So reevaluate your biological media, can you get anything more efficient into your filter?

Diatomaeous earth filters can filter out GW. Daphnia can. Unlikely either would really take care of it perfectly, just throwing it out.

 

[SwampGremlin]

Sometimes if you look for someone sellling tanks used locally on crigslist and it looks as if they sell multiple used tanks they usually have great bargains on many other things that might not be posted. there is a guy in our city all he does is go buy everyones tanks and resells them he usually ends up with all the equiptment and he sells it for a tenth of what you would pay new.
Just a thought.

 

[Kylesaltandpepper]

I'll go ahead and dose about 1/8-1/4 tsp of nitrate everyday and see what happens. It's just I already have 20-30 ppm of nitrates and scared that it may go a little too high.

 

[Kathyy]

Nitrate probably won't help then.

I found that allowing stems and floaters to really build mass at the surface cleared the water up, possibly due to the increase in plant mass or possibly due to less light in the water column. You could try it if you have such plants already or try shading the tank or reducing the lighting period. Getting better biological filtration was the key in my case. Possibly tiny surges of ammonia were missed by plants and grabbed by phytoplankton probably due to the tank being too bright so adding more area for filter bacteria did the trick.

Using UV works I'm sure but it is zapping the result not treating the cause. I suspect some other algae would just take in that tiny bit of ammonia and there would be another alga plague just like you had CB and now you have GW.

 

[Kylesaltandpepper]

Well after some ei dosing calculations, I'm pretty sure my nitrates are actually a bit on the low side (5-10 ppm). I thought my nitrates were high because of the extremely in accurate api liquid nitrate test readings(160 ppm). Well I just dosing 1/4 tsp today and will be doing that for the next few days. During that time, should I shorten the light period to four hours or just do a black out with a blanket over the tank?