Green Water

[Taffy]

Hi. I work in a pet shop, we have been established since November and seem to be having on going trouble with our tanks.

We use fluval filters (sz 3) and the tanks are about 80L. They get a 20% - 30% water change weekly and filters cleaned monthly. We do weekly water tests and the results are always normal.
For some reason though the water on some cold and tropical tanks is green, really green, we cant even see the fish . It is not happening to all tanks, just random ones here and there. Some have fish in them, others are empty.

We have tried a lot of things...........

Green away
Full water change
Adding extra gravel
Using 50% water from a clear tank instead of tap water during a water change
Adjusting the amount of light
Adding plants
Adding polyester pad to filter
Opening the top of the filter bit to create bubbles (which resulted in white spot outbreak)
Moving the filter nearer the top and bottom of the tank
Adding cycle daily
Cleaning filters weekly

Finally we added Nutrafin P Clear which works a treat, but requires continual use every few days.

However, we still dont know what is causing this, nor how to fix it long term, nor why some tanks are effected but not others when they are all treated the exact same .

Anyone experienced this before? Do you know why this is happening or how to fix it?

Any advice is greatly appreicated.

 

[WILDER]

Good article to read.

http/www.skepticalaquarist.com/docs/algae/green.shtml

 

[rabbut]

An idea of what you consider "normal" for water stats would be good. You are a shop after all, so your tanks will be heavily stocked most likely, most of the time... This can often lead to water stats running away. They may be normal for your tanks, but is it normal compared to normal tanks? What are the numerical stats of a typical tank with Greenwater? Also, what test kits do you use for testing? I assume it's individualised systems, rather than a centralised system?

All the best
Rabbut

 

[Taffy]

Thank you for the article Wilder i read it with great interest.

An idea of what you consider "normal" for water stats would be good. You are a shop after all, so your tanks will be heavily stocked most likely, most of the time... This can often lead to water stats running away. They may be normal for your tanks, but is it normal compared to normal tanks? What are the numerical stats of a typical tank with Greenwater? Also, what test kits do you use for testing? I assume it's individualised systems, rather than a centralised system?

All the best
Rabbut

Thanks Rabbut.

Unlike most shops we do not carry a lot of fish stock. As we are still trying to establish ourselves we stick to simple to care for fish and fish we know we will shift.

PH 7.0
Ammonia 0
Nitrite 0.1
Nitrate 5

We use Nutrafin test kits. The stats for our green tanks are identical to our clear tanks.

The worst Nitrate we have ever had has been 10 (has been seen once or twice in a few tanks) but everything else has been consistant.

 

[Goodygumdrops]

You never mentioned lighting?

 

[Taffy]

You never mentioned lighting?

It is just normal fish tube lighting. We have arranged the light shade things under the hood to different angles to increase/decrease light but nothing stops it. Each light lights two tanks, however only one of the tanks lit by the strip light goes green desptie them both being given the exact same amount of light.

Hagen Aqua Glo is the make,

The lights are on from 9:30am to 6pm.

 

[Goodygumdrops]

Check this out,maybe it'll help you out:

http/www.aquariumalgae.blogspot.com/

 

[Taffy]

Thank you, i found that interesting .

Our tanks do not have plants in them any more .

 

[rabbut]

The Nutrafin test kit has a zero colour for NitrIte does it not? If so, do you have any idea why the NitrIte reading is raised? What numbers of what sized fish would you have in a "typical" tank?

Other than the nitrite reading, your water does look ok, light sounds fine (unless its really blue like some of the colour enhansing lights?) and the tanks well maintained. This could be a puzzling one I don't suppose these tanks get hit by direct sunlight do they? How close together at the tanks with greenwater?

All the best
Rabbut

 

[Taffy]

The Nutrafin test kit has a zero colour for NitrIte does it not? If so, do you have any idea why the NitrIte reading is raised? What numbers of what sized fish would you have in a "typical" tank?

Other than the nitrite reading, your water does look ok, light sounds fine (unless its really blue like some of the colour enhansing lights?) and the tanks well maintained. This could be a puzzling one I don't suppose these tanks get hit by direct sunlight do they? How close together at the tanks with greenwater?

Nitrite on the NF test is a very pale pink. The next level (0.3) is quite a lot pinker. The wee book says anything under 0.3 is fine so always sitting at 0.1 we assumed we were doing well.

We have a range of fish in the tanks, as an example we would have.....

Guppy tank - 25 guppies
Molly tank - 12 - 18 mollys
Gourami tank - 9 med gourami's (3 spot, pearl and snakeskin mixture)
Maybe 10 fantails to a tank and the same for comets dependant on their size (less for big comets)

I have always assumed we are not over stocked as other shops i have been to carry far more in their tanks than us. Do you think we have too much?

The green tanks are scattered about, there is no pattern to the ones that are green, just dotted about here and there . They are no where near direct sunlight, situated right at the back of the shop.

It is very puzzling and frustrating. We have read lots of books, phoned our suppliers, phoned other shops who have fish experts there, exhausted a list of things to try. I really appreciate your help thank you.

 

[aaronnorth]

green water is caused by ammonia spikes, which are sometimes undetectable on hobby test kits. They read 0ppm which is the safe level for fish, obviously there is always going to be ammonia there otherwise the nitrogen cycle doesnt work.

The nitrite may have come from ammonia (NH3 >> NO2) so that may be where the cause lies.

To get rid, do an 80% water change, followed by a 3 day blackout, follwed by another 3 day blackout.

Cover the tank up so that no light gets into the tank, dont peek, and dont feed, fertilise or run CO2 etc etc.

By the sounds of it you are running seperate tanks? with you stocking higher fish loads than normal i would suggest upgrading the filters to handle the extra waste, perhaps put a fluval 205 on them, particularly on the fantails, gouramis and molly tanks as they pruduce more waste.

The other option is to run UV sterilisers, this can be done cheaply by using one large one to cover all the tanks, but maybe not viably in your situation.
You could always stick a couple of clams in the tanks lol
Thanks.

 

[Goodygumdrops]

Thank you, i found that interesting .

Our tanks do not have plants in them any more .

Did you read the bit on green water?Ignore the fact that this is on a planted tank site,the idea is the same and actually,your green water would be worse without plants as there is nothing else there to compete for nutrients.

 

[drobbyb]

green water is caused by ammonia spikes, which are sometimes undetectable on hobby test kits. They read 0ppm which is the safe level for fish, obviously there is always going to be ammonia there otherwise the nitrogen cycle doesnt work.

If you are seeing any nitrite at all, it had to come from ammonia. If there is enough ammonia to cause a nitrite reading in a cycled tank, then there are ammonia spikes which are causing your green water problems.

 

[Taffy]

Thank you for the replies aaronnorth and drobbyb. It does sound like the blackout is the best idea, will just need to work out a way to do it

Goodygumdrops, yes i read the entire article with interest, thank you.

 

[rabbut]

Well, light-ish stocking for a LFS, but small-ish filters for the tanks... With NitrIte always being present, it should be zero at all times, same as Ammonia, it makes me wonder if under-performing filters may be the issue...

May I ask why you didn't install a Centralised System? Was it budget issues, fear of Disease or other reasons? If it does materialise that the fiters are under-performing for the fish load on the tanks, you'll need to upgrade the filters, something that won't be that cheap unless you have like 5-10 tanks In this case, I'd likely look at converting to centralised systems over new internals in an LFS application...

On top of your black-outs, cut down to absolutely minimal feeding (as you will be doing anyway, as you are an LFS that constantly sends out fish. Well fed fish kill themselves in the bag via their own waste in transit, if it's a longer journey..) and you should hopefully start to get somewhere.

Do let us know how you get on

All the best
Rabbut