25 replies to this topic

[duck]

I thought i show my bad time's.
This is i believe happened after dosing Excel for nearly 2 weeks(for BBA)
And a prune,shifting thing's the whole lot,Then i did a WC which i thought should bring it back into line,So i'm blaming the Excel for throwing thing's out of sinc.

I'm carrying on my normal fert regime minus the Excel upping the PO4,That's about it and wait it out.
Don't them cardinals look good :roll:

[daxy]

Hey mate

i also dosed excel for 2 weeks - no problems like yours tho

when my tank looked like yours... phosphate was sky high.
u could virtually see the lagae grow in front of your eyes!

put in a phosphate pad and things cleared in bout 3 days.
i am neva gonna dose phosphate again.... esp phosphate in the form of fleet enema!!

cheers
Mike

[punie]

I'm carrying on my normal fert regime minus the Excel upping the PO4,That's about it and wait it out.

Ivano, thats not good.
Green water thrives on sky high phosphate levels. Upping the P04 would just give you more. Doing water changes would also give you more blooms. Tap water contains P04.

How much of excel were you dosing? I doubt excel would have caused this, rather i suspect the opposite.

I think i have your answer.
You've somehow managed to kill you bacteria colony (maybe via OD on excel?), coupled with rocketing levels of phosphates resulting in green water.

Either you invest in a UV unit, or a phospahte pad.
I've tried the Azoo Green Water away, quite frankly it did jack...

[locus]

You could always try the blackout technique...

[grimlock]

Yeap i had it just as bad
Jerome witness my pea soup

it lasted 2 weeks...it was definitely the phosphate!

i blacked it out for 3 days and did some water changes and stop dosing my tank

and it got rid of it

but now i am getting a brown kinda stringy fuzzy algae

manually removed it with a brush.

[locus]

but now i am getting a brown kinda stringy fuzzy algae

manually removed it with a brush.

Are you dosing iron? Usually I get this stuff when I dose too much iron.

[grimlock]

Locus: yeap must be the chelated iron

thanks..now i know

[grimlock]

i got a box of chelated iron from bunnings cant remember the brand

how much do we dose for iron?

[locus]

I use seachem iron to take the guess work out of dosing. I forget the PPM you aim for, hunt down Chuck Gadd's fertiliser dosing calculator for PPM and also to work out what solution to mix to add to a certain PPM.

[Ilangi]

Green water is the easiest algae to treat and the least harmful to our plants and fish... so don't stress Ivano

It normally makes an appearance in newly set up tanks and after major re-scaping or huge water changes on mature set ups.

Phosphates are what green water feeds on and I would recomend that you only dose iron, potassium nitrate and magnesium sulphate in half doses until it clears. DO NOT dose trace elements or potassium phosphate until you are all clear again!

Once the water has cleared you may use the full dose for everything but trace and phosphate which you can re-commence at a half dose.

I developed this method for treating "pea soup" from my own experience and I have since thought carefully of the reason why it has worked... This is just a theory, so I'm open to other suggestions/reasons/corrections:

In a balanced tank green water is consumed by free-swimming plankton, the population of tiny ciliates, rotifers and crustacea, especially copepods, that keep the algae population in balance.

In a new tank there is often an abundace of nutrients available that gives green water a chance to bloom... once the nutrients are depleted it takes the plankton/micro-fauna several days to increase in large enough numbers to consume all of the excess green water.

After treating a tank with medication, or after doing a major water change/re-scape in a mature tank we can actually devastate the plankton population, which allows the green water to make a "come-back".

For this reason I would advise against using a UV Sterliser as this will destroy the plankton as well as the green water, which means, as soon as you take out your UV Steriliser the green water will return.

If you want lasting results, I suggest you do a 50% water change (to remove excess phosphates), follow my modified fert regime (above) and feed your fish a minimum until it clears... then slowly increase the amount of phospahtes that you add so that the plankton which feeds on green water has an opportuntity to increase in population as the green water does in response to the extra nutrients available.

Good luck, and my apologies for the long post :oops:

PS: The cardinals do look great (nice and big) and they will be fine in the green water :wink:

[Brett]

Hi Ivano,

Can I use that picture in my algea gallery

I tend to agree with most above. Stop fertilisers and wait it out.

Cheers
Brett

[punie]

For this reason I would advise against using a UV Sterliser as this will destroy the plankton as well as the green water, which means, as soon as you take out your UV Steriliser the green water will return.

If you want lasting results, I suggest you do a 50% water change (to remove excess phosphates), follow my modified fert regime (above) and feed your fish a minimum until it clears... then slowly increase the amount of phospahtes that you add so that the plankton which feeds on green water has an opportuntity to increase in population as the green water does in response to the extra nutrients available.

Nat, i've used graeme's UV against my green water and it worked wonders, within 3 days it was cleared. After i removed it, the GW never did come back. I've tried methods like yous, but changing large volumes of water only does more harm than good. By replacing thr 50% of water you're adding in more phosphates no?

[locus]

BTW Ivano, your glosso seems to be spreading quite slowly... try cutting the runners between a few of them to encourage new runners to grow and get your carpet quicker

[Ilangi]

I must admit that I've never tried the UV sterliser on a planted tank as I have herad that it may oxidise some of the nutirents and render them unavailable for plant use. But your experience with graeme's UV steriliser provides evidence which disproves my micro-fauna balance theory

I have however tested Perth Scheme Water for phosphates and found them to be barely tracable. When doing a water change we are denfinitely lowering the amout of phosphate in our tanks that has accumalted from the addition of ferts and fish food. I really think the main reason that green water appears after huge water changes (60% +) is because we have removed a large portion of the micro-fauna that feed on the green water, and these take longer to reproduce than the unicellular aglae that will "bloom" and give us our pea soup.

What are some other people's experiences with "pea soup", what was done to make it appear and what did you do to remove it?

[duck]

If I have high PO4,Do i get BBA or GW,I think BBA would most likely fit the picture,Or is a high PO4 a lucky dip, GW or BBA, doesn't seem right.
I have read that it's NH4, is the cause of GW that's why you see it mainly new setup's,As Tom Barr has written.

My PO4=3ppm maybe more as my test only goes that high.
NO3 around the 30 PPM,BBA has stopped growing.

Remember that i rooted around quite a bit while dosing (OD) Excel,So i would have to say that while doing a big prune,shifting thing's around and dosing Excel all on the same day, I killed off good bacteria therefore i got amoniom spike then GW, make's sense to me,If i hadn't used Excel i would of be ok.

I have had my PO4 up just as high if not higher and never had GW,The only time i got GW is when i did too much at once,Plus (OD) Excel is which i still blame for the kill off, no matter how much you try to twist me around into believing it's my PO4

Brett You can use the pic.

[locus]

http://www.csd.net/~...plant_algae.htm

[duck]

BTW Ivano, your glosso seems to be spreading quite slowly... try cutting the runners between a few of them to encourage new runners to grow and get your carpet quicker

Thank's,will do,As soon as i can see in the tank

[duck]

http://www.csd.net/~...plant_algae.htm

And
I have had high PO4 before,High NO3 before OD on trace's but never got GW.
How high is high?

[Graeme]

I am so jealous
the only pea soup i have had was edible
You sure impressed me Ivano!!!!

Graeme

[Brett]

Natale has raised an interesting "biological control" theory. Am not sure if the theory is correct, but it does offer a potential solution. You could try Daphne in your tank and they will efficiently remove the algea for you. This has been very effective for me in outdoor ponds.

Personally I don't think there is "one answer" to questions of what causes green water/bba/bga/etc. Wouldn't it be nice if there was?

Cheers
Brett