What The Heck Is Up With My Tank?!

[Kairi]

I do not have stats for the tank- I have currently lost my test kit. Wonderful time to loose it, hu?

Anywho- the tank has been set up over a year. I am currently emptying it of mollies... but for the past- oh, a while now I suppose, the water is GREEN. Like algae bloom green but it's not going away! Even when I hold off on feeding for a day. It's gross and disgusting and smells horrid!

I got fed up today and took all the decorations out- especially since it's pretty hard to catch fish with a tank full of stuff... and it's horrible looking! I remember the days I could actually *see thru it* ... no more

What's going on?!!

 

[Tolak]

Leave any lights off, and as long as there are no adult fish don't feed for 3 or 4 days.

 

[Kairi]

there are adult fish- and fry. what do i do?

 

[Tolak]

Sorry, multi tasking here; As long as there are all adult fish it is fine to fast for 3 or 4 days. If the fry are older than a few weeks they can go without food for a couple of days. Light provides the energy algae needs, as it is a plant, fish food is like fertilizer to algae. By depriving it of both it will often clear up on its own.

 

[Kairi]

i suppose i could just catch the fry and float them in the 10 gallon for a few days. and you sure it'll get rid of the green water?

 

[Tolak]

One thing I am sure about are there are no for sures with aquatics. Deprivation of light & food is the best start. It's much more natural than adding any chemicals to the tank, which will kill the algae, but are usually copper based. This means they will kill any invertabrates, along with any algae eating fish, since copper tends to concentrate in algae.

 

[Kairi]

i have an algae eater, and we love him very much. i'll stick w/ the 3-4 days no food thing... but AFTER i finish catching all those other mollies. too hard to catch w/o tricking them. =)

thank ya!

 

[Yetti]

If you want to get rid of this quickly, and keep it away I suggest a UV sterilizer.

 

[adamgreen240]

suppose you will just have to do lots of water changes- possible 2x 40% per week

chin up - it will soon clear and you will have your nice tank back

 

[faithless1294]

the thing with out any lights and food worked for me my tank went really bad all of a sudden left lights of no feeding and it cleared up.

 

[Kairi]

can't afford the uv sterilizer..... we'll see how the no lights works.

 

[cheesy feet]

I've heard a few peeps on here say they have had UV sterilizers and said they were a waste of money.

 

[rdd1952]

Usually green water is nothing more than a nuisance. It doesn't have any odor and really isn't bad for the fish. If yours has a bad smell, I think it is something more than diatoms. Could be excess algae that is dying (which could cause an ammonia spike). What type substrate do you have? If it's sand, you could have gas pockets that are giving off the odor.

If it is indeed green water, doing water changes won't do any good at all. I went through that and it seemed te more water changes I did (was up to 50% per day), the worse it got. I finally bought a UV Sterilizer and it was gone in less than 48 hours and hasn't returned. That was almost 2 years ago. It will however eventually clear up on it's own.

 

[SamUK]

how big is the tank?


i had the same problem in my 180g tank and i bought something called Tetra Pond AlgoRem.


it said it controlled green water and it didnt half work!!

within 12 hours i went from not being able to see into the tank at all, to this.

never did figure out what it was and tank readings were fine.

the catch tho is its for ponds so its really strong so if you do buy it be very careful.

 

[Kairi]

well the guy at the LFS told me about something for fresh water ponds or tanks. won't hurt my pleco, and should clear it up relatively quick. have to leave the lights out though... not a big deal. we'll see.