According to what I have read, GW is little more than a "phase" the
aquarium goes through if things get slighly off balance. To my
understanding the green cloud almost cures itself. That didn't happen
and I have been waiting for about 60 days.

* Blackout & WC was suggested for others... it didn't help at all.
* I cut nutrient supply to about 1/2 (food, fert, and light)
* 20% WC every week and a 50% WC. WC's made the cloud less dense for
about 3 days.
* I rigged a fine-filtration system.... WOW! but the GW replaced any I
filtered in about 24-48 hours.
* I rigged up a UV sterilizer with an EEPROM eraser. It helped but not
much. Maybe the light was not potent enough.

Water parameters in my 55g, planted freshwater tank have been:
4dKH(dosed with baking soda)
0 Amm
7.2-7.3pH(dosed CO2)
0.25PO4
2-5ppm nitrates(dosed with potassium nitrate)

......until this week when my PO4 jumped from near zero to 5+. I found
my tap(well) water to be the cause of this. It's 5+ right out of the
ground! I don't know what happened. I wonder if it's fertilizers from
ground run-off in my water supply?? Is this even possible? My plants
are growing at exponential rates!
I am tired of not seeing my fish or my plants. What's the next step,
use only distilled water for WC?? That stinks!

Thanks for any help:

My website, aquarium info and pics at:
http://www.geocities.com/spiral_72/Spirals_page.html

spiral_72 wrote:

* I rigged up a UV sterilizer with an EEPROM eraser. It helped but not
much. Maybe the light was not potent enough.

I hope the UV tube was completely isolated to prevent direct exposure to
anything live in the aquarium. You can get skin cancer or develop
cataracts by looking directly at those bulbs. When you said EEPROM
eraser, I suddenly imagined the whole tank being exposed!

Nikki

You might try putting in a daphnia culture, your tank sounds perfect
for them. You might need to set up a refugium for them so they don't
all get eaten. Okay, probably not a serious solution, but I think it
could be a cool set up anyway.

How is your UV sterilizer set up? What is the wattage of the bulb? (sb
13wt) What are you using for a water jacket? What is the flow rate? UV does not penetrate very far into the water, and the algae will make that worse, so .5-1cm tops and the longer the water takes to exit the better. Jebo makes a fairly good sterilizer that you can get on eBay for around $50.

Green water couldn't be easier to cure. Change 80% of the water two days in
a row while you're diatom filtering the tank. Vacuum the gravel THOROUGHLY;
expect to find a lot of crud there and tons of green water coming out of the
gravel - this is why it reoccurs.

In a tank with healthy plant growth from good light and fertilization,
that is kept clean, you will never see green water.

Show me a tank with green water and I'll show you where it's dirty,
which is why the water turned green.

The green water represents free ammonia that shouldn't have been in your
tank. Even if you were to kill it all with say, a UV sterilizer it'll
now rot and go back to ammonia only to repeat this cycles as ammonia
is what causes it. You have to remove the source of the problem and the
problem itself. You might be surprised at how much crud you can remove
from a green water tank. On about the fifth bucket of dark brown
water you start to get some idea of just why this tank turned green.

A cheap trick to keep is clear is to throw in a handful of water
sprite or other agressive floating plant.

Long term, water goes green because of underfertilization and
lack of frequent partial water changes. That is, the plants
are not growing quickly enough to consume the ammonia the tank
is producing.

Ambulia planted int he gravel seems to work as well as floating
water sprite - any FAST growing plant will work. Note this
does not mean "any stem plant". While Ludwigia repens would
also be a good choice, Ludwigia, say, gladulosus or arcuata
would not be.

--
Need Mercedes parts ? - http://parts.mbz.org
http://www.mbz.org | Mercedes Mailing lists: http://lists.mbz.org
633CSi 250SE/C 300SD | Killies, killi.net, Crypts, aquaria.net
1970 280SE, 72 280SE | Old wris****ches http://watches.list.mbz.org

HA! Nah, I run clear flex through the eraser and pumped water with a
power head. The flow was controlled by how much I kinked the tube.
Crude? yea, but I was able to slow the volume pumped to about
1qt/min...... and if I remeber correctly the bulb was an 8W UV. It made
an eerie glow at night.

I will try vacuuming about 80% water on two consecutive days. I had
always considered my vacuuming to be very sufficient. Maybe not. If I
do this, what about the high phosphates in my tap water? I can't afford
90gal of distilled water.

I grow Ambulia strange enough.... It grows very fast and VERY dense out
the top of the tank.I trim the stuff about 4-6" below the surface every
week, believe it or not. Both my tanks are full of Ambulia from the
original two little plants!

My website, aquarium info and pics at:
http://www.geocities.com/spira=ADl_72/Spirals_page.html

"Richard Sexton" wrote in message
...
Green water couldn't be easier to cure. Change 80% of the water two days
in
a row while you're diatom filtering the tank. Vacuum the gravel
THOROUGHLY;
expect to find a lot of crud there and tons of green water coming out of
the
gravel - this is why it reoccurs.

In a tank with healthy plant growth from good light and fertilization,
that is kept clean, you will never see green water.

Show me a tank with green water and I'll show you where it's dirty,
which is why the water turned green.

The green water represents free ammonia that shouldn't have been in your
tank. Even if you were to kill it all with say, a UV sterilizer it'll
now rot and go back to ammonia only to repeat this cycles as ammonia
is what causes it. You have to remove the source of the problem and the
problem itself. You might be surprised at how much crud you can remove
from a green water tank. On about the fifth bucket of dark brown
water you start to get some idea of just why this tank turned green.

A cheap trick to keep is clear is to throw in a handful of water
sprite or other agressive floating plant.

Long term, water goes green because of underfertilization and
lack of frequent partial water changes. That is, the plants
are not growing quickly enough to consume the ammonia the tank
is producing.

Ambulia planted int he gravel seems to work as well as floating
water sprite - any FAST growing plant will work. Note this
does not mean "any stem plant". While Ludwigia repens would
also be a good choice, Ludwigia, say, gladulosus or arcuata
would not be.

--
Need Mercedes parts ? - http://parts.mbz.org
http://www.mbz.org | Mercedes Mailing lists: http://lists.mbz.org
633CSi 250SE/C 300SD | Killies, killi.net, Crypts, aquaria.net
1970 280SE, 72 280SE | Old wris****ches http://watches.list.mbz.org

I have found that whenever I change 40-45 (or more) percent of my tank's
water in one session the tank's water gets cloudy. Over the last year and a
half whenever this unusual occurrence has happened I use the vortex xl
diatom filter to fix it. Always crystal clear water afterward until the next
big water change. I know for a fact my tap (city) water is different and
probably has extra impurities, in order for me to have any long living
plants staying alive and growing they have to be particular types (i.e. java
fern grows good in my tanks but not hornwort (I know - hard to believe and
accept), nor elodea (both types), nor valisineria, nor pygmy chain sword,
amazon sword has grown some since fertilization, crypts got eaten by silver
dollars (I admit it is my fault for not keeping up on varying their
herbivorous diet), anubias (coffeeolia) got uprooted by silver dollars but I
replanted it, and water wisteria seems to be dyeing off), or else they just
die off. I am thankful that the java fern grows good in my water though. I
like the idea of using daphnia to clear your green water - try it or a
diatomaceous earth filter like the vortex xl. The daphnia method seems best
as I have heard that some green water bugs are diatoms (too small to filter
out conventionally) and the vortex might not do the trick for green water
but it definitely does the trick for my cloudy water. Good luck and later!

I run a 75% WC last night.... The water in the tank is obviously much
clearer. I still can't see the back wall of the tank though. There is a
considerable cloudiness. I was able to prune everything and rid my tank
of anything not perfectly healthy............. Gotta wait I guess. I am
running my fine filter media for good measure.

My website, aquarium info and pics at:
http://www.geocities.com/spira=AD=AD...rals_page.html

Hi all,

I have mentioned in a previous post on this topic, but it's really worth
mentioning again.

I used freshwater clams to clear my green water problem. they cost me AU$4
each and each one 'filters' 20 liters (approx 1/2 a US gallon) an hour.

All it took in my 200 litre (50 gallon) aquarium was 2 clams and 48 hours
for clear water. I didn't do any of the large water changes, UV lights or
diatom filters.
I keep one clam in my tank at all times and I have never had a problem
since...

I did do some vacuming afterwards but this was to clean up the mess from the
algaecide that didn't fix the problem and killed half of my fish population
due to my KH not being high enough...

Hope this helps.

Justin.
"spiral_72" wrote in message
ups.com...
I run a 75% WC last night.... The water in the tank is obviously much
clearer. I still can't see the back wall of the tank though. There is a
considerable cloudiness. I was able to prune everything and rid my tank
of anything not perfectly healthy............. Gotta wait I guess. I am
running my fine filter media for good measure.

My website, aquarium info and pics at:
http://www.geocities.com/spira**l_72/Spirals_page.html

Yea, I have heard of that before..... I thought freshwater clams were
hard to keep alive and more died than lived.

I've had mine in this tank for over 8mths... He's still there... Moves
every now and then...

The one in my other tank died and the fish ate everything that was inside
the shell...


"spiral_72" wrote in message
oups.com...
Yea, I have heard of that before..... I thought freshwater clams were
hard to keep alive and more died than lived.