"J. H." wrote in message ...
Thanks for the reply Tony.

I thought I set the tank up properly for no algae problems I heavily
planted the whole bottom with fast growin stem species from my previous
planted tank and they are growing like crazy. I have pressurised CO2
keeping the levels high and high light. On others reccomendations I was not
going to dose any nutrients till week 3 or 4 but the greenwater still
happened. I have no fishload in the tank at all at the moment and have been
trying Dominics methods but its just getting greener.. currently in the
process of dumping 3/4 of the water

Cheers
Jon


Jon,

I'm not sure that I can be of much help. It would be interesting to
see if you could clear it up without a UV sterilizer. It sounds like
you've done some research before getting started. The only think I
can recommend is cutting back on the lights and working up to higher
wattage. You may not be able to do that. Also at this point, cutting
back on lights may not help in the long run. Have you checked your
phospates, nitrites, nitrates and iron? It could be that when you
added water you stirred up the substrate enough to suspend material
that is causing the algae bloom.

I got one because of two reasons. One, to clear the green water. I
figured with almost 200 watts over 46 gallons it would difficult to
clear the green water. Two, because I thought it would help prevent
diseases. I intended to use it when I added new plants or fish to the
tank to help clear any floating bacteria or algae that might have
gotten in. I'm not clear that this would help significantly. I'm not
using mine now, but I'm thinking of creating a secondary filtration
system and including the UV sterilzer on that. I'd like to be able to
suck up crud on the bottom of the tank without having to do a water
change. I figure I could get a pump and a some kind of mechanical
filter. I could also just leave this second system running when I add
new fish/plants to the tank, it won't hurt anything.