Topic: Green water

[wendyjo]

No.  But I'm too lazy right now to bring out a new tank for the betta so I can do a black out.  I *just* put my spare tank away after about 3 months of raising fry until they were large enough for my main tank, and I am SO SICK of having that spare on my dining table.  But I'll probably get around to it this week.  The fish seems fine - I've been checking my parameters and there is no ammonia or NitrIte, or even NitrAte with all the wc's I've been doing.  Everything I've read says the greenwater itself isn't harmful to fish.

[Cholly]

Wendyjo, did the greenwater also coincide with installation of the corkscrew bulb? Without sufficient fast growing plants, I've had algae issues with them.

[wendyjo]

No Cholly, I've always replaced the bulbs in my minibows with the corkscrews cause the ones that come with it get so hot.

And speaking of corkscrew bulbs, the one in my other minibow has burned out, lol, and my poor fish is in the dark.  Gotta get to Lowes but probably won't till the weekend.  Boo hiss!

[Guppyguy]

Floating algae=algae eater on steroids

[wendyjo]

It seems to be clearing up - finally!  Just been doing lots of water changes.  Hope it stays in check now.

[Aiptasia]

Water changes and let it run it's course. We see a rise in wild single celled algae levels here in the retention ponds after people (farmers, yards, golf courses, etc.) start using high ammonia and phosphate fertilizers here. Water changes are a good idea to naturally bring down the levels of abundant nutrients available to single celled algae. Another natural approach is to use natural algae consumers such as daphnia to your fish tank.

You can also remove them mechanically by the use of a paper micron filter. Several different canister filter designs can implement them.

[Cholly]

A canister filter on a 5 gallon is overkill though, especially for a betta.

[wendyjo]

A canister filter on a 5 gallon is overkill though, especially for a betta.

^ This!

I am just so annoyed - I do water changes and it's better for a few days but then it's right back to green again.  I don't do anything different in this tank than in the other 5g betta tank, so I just don't get it.  Each has the same water change schedule (well I've up'ed it on the green tank now obviously), the same water source, get fed the same amount, each has one betta and one nerite snail.  Yet the other tank is crystal clear. 

[ShieldWolf]

So did this ever clear up?

[Yipee]

From what you're saying, I wouldn't recommend doing any w/c. The green water is probably caused by excess nutrients in the water so just let the nutrients run out. Keep the lights on as usual and the duckweed can probably help to use up the nutrients as well. Have you tested your dechlorinated tap water? Since the green water comes back even after a w/c maybe something was added to the tap water recently?