Help Green Water

[Smark]

My 20 gallon fish tank has cloudy green water. I have 10 Barbs and 1 cory and 4 glow light tetra. Will this hurt the fish? I heard the green algae robs the water of its oxygen. I do not want to use any cemicals.There is brown and green algae on every thing. I do 1/3 tank water changes and it comes right back in a day or two. I took out all of the plastic plants and the lava rock. What should I do? PS I lost 1 Barb.

 

[FishLuvr]

you can increase your water changes to say 50 percent, also algae is generally produced by excessive lighting, is your tank near a window? how long do you keep your lights on? etc.

 

[tank_angel]

if u dont currently own a filtaration unit or do then it might not be working properly and u might want to...:
1 - buy a larger unit
or
2 - change your filter pads

and also if ur not using a heater get one cause it will help control climate changes thats influence may help produce algy (bad)

 

[rohnds]

At higher temperatures the alage growth is more prevalent than in cooler temperatures. This due to lack of oxygen at higher temps.

Rohn

 

[YahooFishKeeper]

i got rid of mine y doing a black out. some say it doesnt work, but it worked for me.

 

[SullenGirl]

I just added more live plants to compete for the nutrients, eventually the plants won. i also reduced the lighting schedule for awhile.

 

[tank_angel]

buy a pleco there usually not expensive and if ur planig to get a large tnak or get a shrimp basically get a filtration unit going and if u hav the spare money buy a cheap corner filter(cotton&coal) filter jsut till it clears up after u do that it should be ok

 

[Lotus]

Have you checked your ammonia level?

If you don't have real plants, I would suspect some kind of water quality problem. Perhaps you're overfeeding, or not doing enough water changes.

A pleco won't help with green water.

 

[dax]

Make sure your water parameters are correct before adding anything to your water.
I have added a pleco in my tank and also purchased "clarity" water clairfyer and added it to my water. I added a wad of filter wool into my filter in along with my regular filter cartridge until my water was clear. It took about 1 treatment and saw results in 1-2 days.

It worked for me.

 

[Smark]

I tried ruducing the light and doing a half tank change. I have also reduced the amount of food i give them. I think its working.*thumbsups Thank for the information.

 

[rohnds]

First identify the cause of the algae problem. Commonly the algae is cause by
1. Excess light
2. Excess nitrite or presence of ammonia
3. Excess phosphate (although this true more for diatomic algae than green algae)
4. Lack of oxygen
5. Squeaky clean tank

Check the NO3 and NH3 level and make sure they are within acceptable level. If not, do water changes to bring them down.

Make sure that you tank isn’t in direct sunlight or leaving the lights on for excessively long periods of time. Also check the light wattage and make sure that they are within 2W or 3 W per gallon rating. If you doing all these and still have green algae, do this. Clean your tank. Then turn off the lights. Take a heavy blanket and cover it and leave it for about 48hr and see the effect. If the algae hasn’t come back, then the culprit is your lights. If the algae is back as normal, then the problem isn’t your light.

Check the oxygen level in your tank. Put in a couple of air stones. If this doesn’t help, then try changing the water you use. It is more than likely phosphate or potassium. Try Ro water and see if that work.

One of these solutions is bound to work.

When you clean your tank of algae, never completely remove the algae as this would not be a wise idea. With no algae at all, algae with grow back more rapidly than if left some in it. By leaving some algae in the tank, they will consume some of NO3 produce. This will help control the nutrients and thereby algae.

Rohn