Water Turns Greenish Yellow.

[JoeyBlackrose]

I was at a friends this last weekend, and noticed his fish tank water was not clear. He told me it has been this way for a month or two.

he has run tests on the water and all readings are in proper ranges. One thing he has not been doing is using anything to kill Clorine when changing water.
Could this be the reason it is turning this color?

 

[luque]

no i don;t think so does he have any wood in there (bog wood?)

 

[smmetz]

It could be related. Chlorine can kill the beneficial bacteria in the filter. Then, amonia will build up. From what I have read, at least some kinds of algae can use amonia as food. If that is the cause, the color of the water is the lesser of the problems. The fish will be suffering from the amonia.

Other common contributors to algae in the water can be overfeeding the fish (again, adds amonia ot the water, and nitrites/nitrates if the tank is cycled), having the light on for more than 10-12 hours per day and exposure to sunlight.

 

[JoeyBlackrose]

He has no wood on in the tank.

dont know about the light (amount of time on )


I know he ran water tests and said all was good though.

 

[ffeeel]

I used "fluval lab series opti-care" when my tank was suffering from green/cloudy water and in cleaned it all up in hours.
Its now crystal clear and my fishes seem fine.

 

[Torrean]

I read about the yellowing in a book. Innes I believe.

Green water is a good thing. Partial water changes can decrease it but only temporarily. Over the long run the green water will come back stronger. The book talked about the green water turning yellow and how that was a bad thing. The yellow means the algae is dieing off. You should perform a large (50%) water change asap. Then in a day or two perform a 25% water change. The green water isn't bad but you need to remove some of the algal matter before it starts to rot and fouls your tank.

 

[gpgscott]

I think your friend has a serious problem that will shortly spiral into disaster. First you HAVE to treat for the chlorine/chloromine, it is a fish killer not to mention the effect on the beneficial bacteria in the aqaurium. As far as the earlier post regarding algae dieing, yes this is possible, algae also comes in many colors. Bottom line is this is a bad environment very likely to get worse. Not to be smart but why would you even try to keep fish if you arn't going to pay attention to the basic needs of the fish.

Scott

 

[indigo]

sorry to bump up an old topic, but i'm having the same problem.

my tank has been running for about 10 months now, and the water went yellow as i could only give the bogwood a good hosing down, i couldn't find anything big enough to soak it in as the 2 pieces i have are massive! - even frequent water changes and changing carbon in both filters regularly never toned down this awful darkness/yellow out of the water.

the tank always seemed dark, without the lights on at night the tank would look black.

i recently had a problem with whitespot, and during the treatment i took all the (stagnant) sand out of the tank, thoroughly rinsed off some river pebble gravel which is now no more than an inch deep anywhere, did a large 60% change in water during all the messing about with the tank, gave the filter a boost with a pack of bacteria and enjoyed the water looking crystal clear.... for about 6 days.. i finished medicating the tank about 3 days ago now, did a 30% change and cleaned half the gravel last night, and set up the 2nd filter again (i broke it last week and had to wait for replacement parts). (and yes i use a decent dechlorinator/water conditioner )

currently no carbon in the filter, i'll run out and get some later and get the water tested while i'm out - water has always been perfect in this tank, even during the whitespot and nasty sand disaster recently.

lights are only on for 4-6 hours, there is some direct sunlight on the tank, but only for a short while and it is avoidable so it's not every day, very very small amounts of algae on the glass that the plecs are taking care of, in general all the fish seem very much happier, all nice and bright in colour, all hungry for food at feeding time, lots of activity, have seen signs of breeding in the last few days so i can't be going far wrong.

but why the yellow tinge?

 

[england]

the yellowish tinge is tannis from the bogwood....dont worry about that its normal....wouldnt really worry to much about carbon for the filter.......i would go for filter wool.......i brought carbon for my filter spent £10....used it a week then every1 said it was a waist of time n could cause hole in head.....told to do filter wool...it deff cleans tank better n polishes water

 

[indigo]

the yellowish tinge is tannis from the bogwood....dont worry about that its normal....wouldnt really worry to much about carbon for the filter.......i would go for filter wool.......i brought carbon for my filter spent £10....used it a week then every1 said it was a waist of time n could cause hole in head.....told to do filter wool...it deff cleans tank better n polishes water

hmm I was wondering if i could do without carbon too tbh, i'm running 2 fluval 404's, in one i have 2 tiers of prefilter, and in the other 2 tiers i've cut various sizes of filter sponge to fit snuggly, 4 layers of it in all, and in the other filter i'm currently just running 2 tiers of prefilter, and i have enough sponge to fill another tier, i was toying with the idea of leaving the last layer to either carbon or filter wool, i think you might have pushed me towards filter wool!

am surprised that the bogwood would still leach even after all this time tho >.<

 

[raptorrex]

the yellowish tinge is tannis from the bogwood....dont worry about that its normal....wouldnt really worry to much about carbon for the filter.......i would go for filter wool.......i brought carbon for my filter spent £10....used it a week then every1 said it was a waist of time n could cause hole in head.....told to do filter wool...it deff cleans tank better n polishes water

yellow/green water, can as stated above be caused by tannins, actually no bad thing, some fish and most inverts will love it. however it looks odd to many. but i have found it is often just a sign of the need for a water change, or perhaps upping the amount you change each time. Carbon may well clear your water, but it will not remove all the tannic acids. if i recall the yellow test used to be used to see if carbon in the filter was exhausted. this is largely, academic now, as water changes have taken over the job people used to be use carbon for.

As for carbon causing Hole in the head . never heard that one before . carbon adds nothing, to your tank, unless it it exhausted, so unless you are medicating and leave the carbon in. i fail to see how this is even remotely possible. though i suppose it may be that carbon removes some elements from the water that my help protect the fish from it. lol sounds a bit fishy to me!