Help My 75 Gallon

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flyalaska

flyalaska

Jack Dempsey
MFK Member
Apr 25, 2011
32
24
38
Lodi, CA
I need some help. I am not sure whats going on with my 75 gallon tank. It has been running for a little over two months now. I started it with Stability. About a week ago, the water started turning green. Light is on for 8 hours. Food and and waste is pushed to the filters. Nothing is laying on the bottom. I am running my tank with a Fluval 407 and a AquaClear 110 with a wave maker. I have 5 Oscars, 2 jack Dempsey, 4 Convicts, and one Clown Loach. This is a temporary home for these fish. They will be going into a 640 gallon above ground patio pond shortly. About two weeks ago, my fish had ich os some kind of parasite. I was out of town, had someone treat the tank. The tank was treated with Nox ich for the ich and Melafix for the parasites. Could the meds be the cause of this green water? Can the filter media still be holding the meds? I have done water changes, and it keeps coming back. I have carbon in my filters and have a Purigen bag in my AquaClear filter with no luck. ANy ideas would be appreciated.

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Anything that's in the filters, is still in the tank.
The green water is probably due to nutrient buildup.
Have you been doing partial water changes to remove nutrients?
Have you been rinsing the mechanical media in your filters?
Water nitrate level does your tank water test to in ppm, before a water change?
What's the pirate level after a water change?
Nitrate is food for algae.
 
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flyalaska said:
I need some help. I am not sure whats going on with my 75 gallon tank. It has been running for a little over two months now. I started it with Stability. About a week ago, the water started turning green. Light is on for 8 hours. Food and and waste is pushed to the filters. Nothing is laying on the bottom. I am running my tank with a Fluval 407 and a AquaClear 110 with a wave maker. I have 5 Oscars, 2 jack Dempsey, 4 Convicts, and one Clown Loach. This is a temporary home for these fish. They will be going into a 640 gallon above ground patio pond shortly. About two weeks ago, my fish had ich os some kind of parasite. I was out of town, had someone treat the tank. The tank was treated with Nox ich for the ich and Melafix for the parasites. Could the meds be the cause of this green water? Can the filter media still be holding the meds? I have done water changes, and it keeps coming back. I have carbon in my filters and have a Purigen bag in my AquaClear filter with no luck. ANy ideas would be appreciated.

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It’s an algae bloom, i have on in my tank, you should not use algeafix, get a uv filter and do large water changes a lot, also add a lot of bb (beneficial bacteria) that will help and if u want u can add plants that would also help, also leave lights off/ if u want you can black out the tank i
Algal blooms are usually harmless to the fish
Also I’m not sure but idk if the melafix would kill parasites it’s more of a bacterial thing and it’s weak, pond version is much more better
 
Thank you for the info. I bought another wave maker and a UV add-on for my Fluval 407. In the meantime, I have my lights off.
 
Instead of fixing that algal bloom with additional equipment or chemicals, you can stock less, feed less, shorten the duration of the lights, and increase water changes.

You could have tons of filtration but they can only convert ammonia to nitrites, and nitrites to nitrates. The latter must be removed by water changes or a ridiculous amounts of plants that will compete with the algae to utilize nitrates.

Further, phosphorous and other trace elements in fish food also build up and also become nutrients for algae. Again, this is best removed with water changes.

Simply killing the algae via uv sterilizers or chemicals won’t solve the actual problem but only serves to prevent the symptoms. Also, adding more wavemakers or beneficial bacteria won’t do anything for your issue.
 
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algae needs nutrients just like any other plant. so you have a build up of those nutrients. the question is why. overfeeding. lack of water changes. over stocking etc.
im not the type to hound someone over stocking and tank size for the most part. but i will say this. after doing this hobby for nearing 15 years. i wouldnt personally setup another tank without some substantial plant life ( pothos salvania etc) and a drip system. nothing has increased my enjoyment in this hobby more then cutting the work of water changes while maintaining stable water perameters. i still do waterchanges to vaccum the substrate. but its far less volume and its less frequent. dripping about 30 gallons a day into a 420 gallon system loaded with pothos salvania and hot pepper plants :)
 
My tank had the same issue being next to a sliding door so I used a UV sterilizer and that helped.
 
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