HELP!! Green water does not goaway

Hi all,

I am at the stage of giving up fighting green water bloom in my tank.
It started after I have added some water treatment to kill cloudy water, which I had since I run my tank in december. It was not too bad, just a bit white cloud (presume bacterial bloom), just water was not crystal clear like I had in my small tank. After adding that accuclear stuff the water started to blomm (green this time) so in a few days I culd not see anything 1cm away from glass. I tryed different methods, - willow method, increasing No3- so phosphates would be a limiting factor, water changes, considering my tank is 470 litres! Finally I bought some internal UV filter with 9W uv bulb. There was no change in a few days, so I went to the pet shop and bought chemical which makes algae to clog so it can then be easily filtered off. I heard that it works only on dead algae cells which I presumed should be dead after UV treatment but just suspended. The chemical worked for 1.5 day, but when I came back today I saw that my tank is getting green again.
I can not understand this because I am still running UV filter?!!!

Could anybody please give me some advise, why?

All water tests were not showing any ammonia, so it does not seem tobe a new tank sindrome, I had some NO3- in my water and traces of phospahtes due to ferts I was using. All fish are great and show no sing of any distress. No direct sunlight.

I had 6x54WT5, plus CO2, a lot of plants, eheim wet -dry filter.

Any ideas would be highly appreciated.

Thanks

zuciok

I had something the same happen only 6weeks ago, i gave up fighting it and moved my tank to under my stairs.

I had my tank 180l in my sitting room its wasnt getting a huge amount of sunlight but when it was sunny i did notice things got wosre and if there was 2 or 3 days of sun well it nearly as bad as urs.

I did use a uv filter was doing water changes nearly every day use gave up and moved my tank and it has been fine since it dose get some light but the filter takes care of it....... But i guess moving a 470l tank is alot more hasle.

Just wondering how long are the lights on it the tank per day?

Does the tank get direct sunlight on it or any sunlight?

Was the water always that green or did it get worse afer useing any of the ways to remove it, just thinkin would any chemicals used if mixed with the fertz make this worse?

just read on the amount of light ur blubs give of 324 watts of light thats alot:laugh:

Hi alkiely,

Thanks for suggestions. I am just surprised that UV filter does not do the job it should 100 % work for that, maybe its because algae is growing faster than UV is killing it? unfortunnately:angry:

In the very morning my tank gets some sunlighlight in one corner, form 7-9 am, but its only recently, since I started to open my curtains.As for algae it appeared while before the sun started to get in in the mornings.
as for lights I have higly planted tank so would not be worried about them too much, I had in my smaller tank even more lights and never had this problem. I have lights from 10am to 10 pm. At the moment I have only 2 bulbs out of 6, will see if changes anything.

The picture shows the tank in its worst condition, which lasted nearly 3 weeks before I added chemical 2 days ago. But I can see its coming back, I know it takes 2-3 days before tank is green as on the picture.
I also stopped using any fetrs when algae appeared.

Unfortunately I can not move my tank its too big:laugh: , but maybe if nothing works, I will have to do blackout.

Thanks
Zuciok

Id cut the lights down to a few hrs a day while using the uv filter and see waht happens do a 50% water change which i no is a pain in the ar*e then cut the light right down and then again in two days do another 50% water change with the lights still on for a few hrs with the uv running she if that makes any difference.

Alan

Zuciok,

guess some of the fish love your tank! Sorry about the bloom. Tank looks really good apart from the bloom.

You mention that the tank only gets sun light recently and its only going from December. I think it might be the sunlight, did the sunlight on the tank coincide with the start of the bloom? Maybe killing the white cloudy bacteria provided food for the algae.

Have you thought about covering the tank during the day, or maybe keep the curtains pulled in the morning. Try this for a week and see if it has any impact. You might also want to stop using the uv unit as it kills everything, good and bad.

Puggy.

Puggy wrote:

Zuciok,

guess some of the fish love your tank! Sorry about the bloom. Tank looks really good apart from the bloom.

You mention that the tank only gets sun light recently and its only going from December. I think it might be the sunlight, did the sunlight on the tank coincide with the start of the bloom? Maybe killing the white cloudy bacteria provided food for the algae.

Have you thought about covering the tank during the day, or maybe keep the curtains pulled in the morning. Try this for a week and see if it has any impact. You might also want to stop using the uv unit as it kills everything, good and bad.

Puggy.

Puggy was just thinking along that line coz thats when i noticed a problem with my tank was when the days started to get longer more sunlight and with the stuff used first time round to try remove the cloudy water could all play its part

Regarding the sun light, I have to say that the bloom started without any sunlight. I just started opening curtains few days ago, so there was no sun at all in the room all day when the algae outbreak started.

I will give it a go for few days, maybe UV will do the job, if not I will follow your advise and cut the light with water changes.
It might be tricky, it takes me over an hour to drain half of my tank, then again over the hour to fill it in:)


By the way thats how it looked before the bloom:(

I would first do a large water change and turn off the CO2, if that doesnt work then I would change to a dimmer light. After that if it still hasnt changed I would just give it up and move the tank, regardless of weight, I'm sure you could get a freind to help.

If you just cut the lights I think you will get a very bad diatomic algea problem.