# Green water algae!!!



## JKarse (Dec 28, 2010)

Hey everyone

I recently set up a planted 90 gallon pressurized C02 aquarium with roughly 2.5 wpg of light. In a matter of 4-5 days the tank was completely green after being set up for 3 weeks. Why did this suddenly happen after three successful weeks?? I have the lights and C02 running for 12 hours each day, is that too much?? I was doing 30% water changes once a week and now I bumped it up to 50% because of the algae bloom. There are no fish in the tank yet but approx. 15 different species of plants. I know this kind of algae is caused by too many nutrients in the tank so how many hours should I cut back on when it comes to light?? Is there anything else I can do?? 

Thanks


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## fish_r_kewl (Sep 3, 2010)

This happened to me on my 90 g low tech. I actually used the water to feed my daphnia culture. It eventually went away after the plants got established, (4-6 months). Floating plants seemed to help as well, but they grew way to fast.


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## _TiDy_ (Apr 29, 2010)

I would suggest posting your dosing regime so we know what your doing nutrients wise as well as what plants you currently have. 12 hours of light is pretty long i would say myself. Are you sure you have enough co2 in the tank? Do you have a drop checker? Since you have no fish in the tank, you could do a bigger water change and run a UV filter to help get rid of the algae.


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## discuspaul (Jul 2, 2010)

Reduce your lighting period to 8 hours/day, and try a UV sterilizer for a few days if your budget allows. That should clean it up in about 72 hours.


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## JKarse (Dec 28, 2010)

Thanks guys, I'm definitely going to reduce the lighting to 8 hours but I can't afford a UV sterilizer at the moment so I'll just have to hope that works. The C02 is being distributed at the proper rate, I was dosing Seachem Flourish twice a week but I have now stopped completely. Should I be reducing the amount of light I'm using? I could turn off the T5 and leave the compact fluorescents on or vice versa.


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## 2wheelsx2 (Apr 21, 2010)

Definitely reduce the amount of light. Sounds like you're not dosing macros, and only trace (Flourish) so that's probably your problem. You are injecting CO2 and starving your plants of NPK.


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## tang daddy (Apr 21, 2010)

Green water is pretty hard to get rid of as I had it twice, no matter how many waterchanges you do it will come back. I ended up buying a uv sterilizer instead and it was gone in 2 days.

Some say just do a black out, but then you risk losing your plants....


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## JKarse (Dec 28, 2010)

How does not dosing Macros cause this kind of algae? Do you think I could get rid of this just by dosing Macro nutrients?


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## EDGE (Aug 24, 2010)

ammonia/ammonium will cause green water. what substrate are you using?


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## JKarse (Dec 28, 2010)

Seachem Flourite. I've tested for ammonia, there is none


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