Green Water Problem

[gbonett]

hi everyone,
i just started an aquarium and i'm having some problems, hopefully someone can help. I've got a 30 gallon fresh water aquarium, with a mechanical filter and about 140watts of flourecence lighting with 3 plants, 5 neon-tetras, 10 algea eating shrimp, and one otto. There was a lot of algea in the begininning and then i added those fish (i don't feed the fish at all) and they seemed to bring it under controll. then all of the sudden the water turned green (more aglea i assume) and visibility got very poor. i can't see any fish most of the time and i think one of them may be sick. i'm also worried that its going to make it hard for the plants to get enough light or nutrients. i'm trying to get this tank to be more or less self sustaining so all i've been doing for maintanence is adding water as the level goes down. I'm trying to figure out if theres some fish i can get to eat the algea in the water, or some natural way to get rid of it.
thanks in advance for any help

 

[gbonett]

 

[MaidenheadAquatics]

are you sure its 140w light you have because thats your problem plus you may have the lights on to long. 8 to 10 hours a day. make sure you still feed the fish because they need other nutrients then just algea.

theres loads of products to give a try for green water (interpet do 1 and plenty more), get your water tested for NO3 and get some treatment to lower it if it's too high. have fun

 

[gbonett]

thanks for the advice, i'll cut back how long the lights are on. i'm fairly sure thats the correct power, i have two 4' shop light fixtures (each with 2 35watt tubes). I'm trying really hard to set up this tank so that i don't need to feed anything, and i was hoping that the plants and algea could take care of the N03, is that possible?
do you have any ideas about fish/micro organisms that might eat whatever is making the water green? will cutting back the light hurt my plant growth significantly?

sorry about all the questions, i know this idea of not wanting the feed the fish seems strange, but this is sort of an experiment in setting up a quasi-self sustaining ecosystem. i appreciate all the help

 

[ICEEGRL]

Neons need food! Please feed them...

 

[emmag21]

What temperature is the tank? xx

 

[Irf]

Firstly, I'd be surprised if you found anyone that said you can have a self-sustaining aquarium.

If you have fish, they will pee/poo into the water and this is toxic to them. The bacteria that will be present in your filtration system process this down to relatively harmless NO3. However you will need to carry out water changes to get rid of this. You could use chemical additives to reduce the frequency of the water changes, but most people don't like adding extra things to their fish worlds. You would still need to change water eventually though. Remember that though we call it a freshwater aquarium, it is essentially stagnant water that is being cleaned and pumped around.... nothing like reality out in the wild.

140W sounds like an awful lot for such a small tank - is that really necessary? How long are the lights on for? Is there daylight as well? This is almost certainly the cause of the green water. 8hrs per day is OK as a maximum, split into two with an hour of so between them I believe. For more guidance check out the Plants and Planted Tanks forum.

Your fish will get very very sick (poor little guys) unless you carry out water changes and feed them. There are few fish that can survive on just algae indefinitely.

When you say mechanical filtration, what is it you are actually using?

And as emmag21 asked - what is the water temperature?

Finally, why are you running this experiment?

Irf.

 

[Underwurlde]

You are simply not going to be able to do anything like a self contained eco-system for that size of tank so forget it! What are the fish going to eat?

Alternatively, get 4 really big bits of glass and stick them around your local pond.

Andy

PS, just in case this is of some use, snippet of a post of mine from another thread:

Green water. oo err:
http/www.fishforums.net/index.php?showtopic=169325

Prevention is better than a cure though, so you may want to consider WHY you are getting green water (algae):
http/www.theplantedtank.co.uk/algae.htm

 

[gbonett]

hey thanks for the response everyone!
the tank temp is 78f

underwurlde- thanks for the links, one of them mentions that green algae is sometimes associated with hi ammonia levels, i'm going to buy a kit to test the ammonia and n03 levels. in the mean time i don't mind doing some water changes. thanks for the help

as far as making this a quasi-self contained eco-system:
i know this is a weird idea, but i really think its doable. as far as what the neons eat, there was an explosions of little tiny worms (presumably eating algae) that the neons seems to be feasting on pretty happily. as far as the NO3 getting out of hand, the hope was that with 140watts of light, the plants could process that N03 in the water. i'm going to buy a ammonia/N03 test kit to see if this is really happening. in the meantime, i guess i'll do some regular water changes....

also, the filter is a canister filter (not at hope to check the brand right now)

thanks for all the help!

 

[gbonett]

ok,
so I ordered a kit to test for ammonia and NO3, and I think i'm going to order some Daphnia in hopes they'll eat up the green water. thoughts?

 

[cleekdaFish]

go get a uv sterilizer on ebay , thats wat im doing

 

[smmetz]

No question a UV sterilizer will clear up any floating algae, which is making the water green.

It would be nice to figure out the cause of the floating algae and eliminate though.

Did you ever reduce the lighting? Usually I read that 2 watts per gallon is good for almost any plant, especially since a typical 30 gallon tank is only 16 inches deep. Therefore, I would eliminate one of your " two 4' shop light fixtures (each with 2 35watt tubes)". That will still leave 70 watts, over 2 watts per gallon.

I know you tried reducing their time on per day, but have you tried to put the lights on a timer, and set it to go off for a couple hours in the middle of the day? Many people report success with this helping to control algae. Apparently, plants can adapt to use the light, but algae has a harder time using light if it gets it less than 4-5 hours at a time. Many people have their times set for 4 hours on, 2 off, 4 on, 14 off.

Also, a "planted tank" needs way more than half the bottom covered with plants. Just having 3 plants is not fullfilling this requirement. Therefore, the plants will not be able to control the algae affectively. You need more plants if you are trying to take the planted tank approach.

I suggest reading up on the planted tank forum. It has tons of posts and stickies about this stuff.

 

[gbonett]

alright, i received my testing kit today and good news! amonia, nitrites and nitrates all measured zero. figure all the algea in the water probably took care of that. I also orderd some daphnia that are supposed to eat the algea, so i'll let everyone know how that goes.

 

[angel_lover]

I hate to say this but I feel sorry for your fish. They are not meant to be used for experiments.

 

[gbonett]

Just an update on the green water situation.

For those of you concerned about the fish: its been over 7 months and none have died and they look happy (as far as I can tell)
I cut the light back to 70 watts and added a daphnia culture, over time the water cleared up.

Nitrates, nitrites and ammonia all measure zero. (according to my test strips)