and yes, the UV light is the fastest fix. but its only a temporary fix until you get things balanced. if not, it will come right back. i had to use my UV light twice until i got it dialed in. after that, it never came out of the box
Green water and limited plant growth problem!!! Need Help
- Thread starter malachi
- Start date
the beauty of a UV light...they cover your *** when you dont know what the hell youre doing!!!! this was my 55g 
I agree with you that the trigger was the loss of your bacteria which caused an ammonia spike, but the excess light has also fueled the algae.
Some floating and stem plants will also help to use up excess nutrients and diffuse some of your excess light.
Some floating and stem plants will also help to use up excess nutrients and diffuse some of your excess light.
Well first i would like to say thank you to everyone who has responded to this thread. This has been a great learning experience and a lesson in tank house keeping and many thanks to all for that.
The tank is now Crystal Clear water and the fish are very happy.
I would like to share how i got rid of the green water and invite anyone to continue to respond after.
After reading everything we all discussed i came to the conclusion that the problems were definitely caused by a bad water change in which I cleaned my filters out with super chlorinated tap water. This intern killed all of the good bacteria in the filter media, this would be so bad in a regular non planted tank given that I have four bio wheels however in this situation it caused a tiny ammonia spike that started a whirlwind of algae growth.
Second the lighting period on my tank was too long at 12-14 hours per day and the tank was way under fertalized and not enough water changes to take out nutrients and add the ones the plants needed.
So.... what i did was after trying numerous other methods including willow branches, crazy water changes and shutting off the lights, i resorted to chemical treatment.
I hate using chemicals but here is how it turned out. I used Algaefix a product by API that they say is safe for plants to kill all of the suspended algae. The process took about three days and went like this:
1. dose per bottle followed by a water change the next day
2. Another dose per bottle and another water change
3. day three another dose and another water change followed bay a dose of Seachem Clarity to gather up all of the dead floating algae and allow the filters to clean it out.
4. Then i cleaned the filter (NOT WITH TAP WATER!!!), did another water change, and added PhosGuard to my filter to start taking out phosphates in the water as well.
In total this took about 4 days to achieve relatively clear water.
The second part of the fix was to take care of the reason it happened in the first place. The lighting schedule has been changed to 1 hour 40w t8 for feeding, 8 hours of High Intensity lighting with CO2, 4 hours again of t8 for viewing and feeding. This is a lot less than before.
Also, i have started a totally new fert program. I change the water every two days. This includes taking out dead plant material (vacuuming only when necessary to keep the substrate undesturbed) and adding ferts. About 15 - 20% water change every two days. I now fertalize with Seachem N, Seachem potassium, Seachem flourish, and seachem Iron durring those water changes. Which is a lot more ferts than before. I would like to leave liquid ferts and move to a more economical approach but this is what i have for now. Any suggestions would be great.
Lastly i have upped the amount of preasurized CO2 to 3 bubbles per second from one, which is now 3X as much.
Now the tank has plenty of fresh ferts, and all of the other nutrients are taken out and swapped every two days to keep water clean and high quality. The CO2 is cranked up (minor ph drop but water changes are taking care of that and keeping it constant at 6.8). and the lighting period is lowered. After maybe two more days the water continued to clear and now its like liquid glass!
DOWNSIDES:
The algae fix has put a major dent in my jungle valls. The long leaves have compleatly been burned off! and they are starting to grow back strong. The swords were also minorly effected but new growth is coming back everyday. Algaefix works and does kill the algae, however it also kills plants regardless of what the bottle says.
So.... the water is now the clearest it has ever been and i have a new schedule to keep and I hope everyone gets a little bit of info out of this.
Not enough ferts and to much light causes major migrain headaches! Also do propper water changes and dont get lazy or pay the price. i lost my long beautifull valls but they are growing back fast and soon i will have a flourishing tank hopefully!
Please comment if possible and sorry this was so long.,
The tank is now Crystal Clear water and the fish are very happy.
I would like to share how i got rid of the green water and invite anyone to continue to respond after.
After reading everything we all discussed i came to the conclusion that the problems were definitely caused by a bad water change in which I cleaned my filters out with super chlorinated tap water. This intern killed all of the good bacteria in the filter media, this would be so bad in a regular non planted tank given that I have four bio wheels however in this situation it caused a tiny ammonia spike that started a whirlwind of algae growth.
Second the lighting period on my tank was too long at 12-14 hours per day and the tank was way under fertalized and not enough water changes to take out nutrients and add the ones the plants needed.
So.... what i did was after trying numerous other methods including willow branches, crazy water changes and shutting off the lights, i resorted to chemical treatment.
I hate using chemicals but here is how it turned out. I used Algaefix a product by API that they say is safe for plants to kill all of the suspended algae. The process took about three days and went like this:
1. dose per bottle followed by a water change the next day
2. Another dose per bottle and another water change
3. day three another dose and another water change followed bay a dose of Seachem Clarity to gather up all of the dead floating algae and allow the filters to clean it out.
4. Then i cleaned the filter (NOT WITH TAP WATER!!!), did another water change, and added PhosGuard to my filter to start taking out phosphates in the water as well.
In total this took about 4 days to achieve relatively clear water.
The second part of the fix was to take care of the reason it happened in the first place. The lighting schedule has been changed to 1 hour 40w t8 for feeding, 8 hours of High Intensity lighting with CO2, 4 hours again of t8 for viewing and feeding. This is a lot less than before.
Also, i have started a totally new fert program. I change the water every two days. This includes taking out dead plant material (vacuuming only when necessary to keep the substrate undesturbed) and adding ferts. About 15 - 20% water change every two days. I now fertalize with Seachem N, Seachem potassium, Seachem flourish, and seachem Iron durring those water changes. Which is a lot more ferts than before. I would like to leave liquid ferts and move to a more economical approach but this is what i have for now. Any suggestions would be great.
Lastly i have upped the amount of preasurized CO2 to 3 bubbles per second from one, which is now 3X as much.
Now the tank has plenty of fresh ferts, and all of the other nutrients are taken out and swapped every two days to keep water clean and high quality. The CO2 is cranked up (minor ph drop but water changes are taking care of that and keeping it constant at 6.8). and the lighting period is lowered. After maybe two more days the water continued to clear and now its like liquid glass!
DOWNSIDES:
The algae fix has put a major dent in my jungle valls. The long leaves have compleatly been burned off! and they are starting to grow back strong. The swords were also minorly effected but new growth is coming back everyday. Algaefix works and does kill the algae, however it also kills plants regardless of what the bottle says.
So.... the water is now the clearest it has ever been and i have a new schedule to keep and I hope everyone gets a little bit of info out of this.
Not enough ferts and to much light causes major migrain headaches! Also do propper water changes and dont get lazy or pay the price. i lost my long beautifull valls but they are growing back fast and soon i will have a flourishing tank hopefully!
Please comment if possible and sorry this was so long.,
Water perams!
Temp 78
Ph 6.8
Ammonia 0ppm
Nitrites 0ppm
Nitrates 10 - 15 ppm
GH - 2 dkh via API test kit (35.8ppm per conversion chart)
KH - 9 dkh via API test kit (160 ppm per conversion chart)
Please comment!!!!!!
My thoughts are that the GH is good and low and the KH is high but this means that the more CO2 is not going to impact my ph levels too much?
If anyone can explain that would be sweat!
Temp 78
Ph 6.8
Ammonia 0ppm
Nitrites 0ppm
Nitrates 10 - 15 ppm
GH - 2 dkh via API test kit (35.8ppm per conversion chart)
KH - 9 dkh via API test kit (160 ppm per conversion chart)
Please comment!!!!!!
My thoughts are that the GH is good and low and the KH is high but this means that the more CO2 is not going to impact my ph levels too much?
If anyone can explain that would be sweat!
