# New tank..Green water



## firefish44 (Mar 29, 2003)

:? Hello, I'm looking for any ideas on a few problems with a new 55g planted tank. Set up for about 4 weeks now, with 2 reoccuring problems: THICK green water and low pH.
Here are the specs: 55g tank, 2" flourite followed by 1 to 2" of playsand (followed Buck's concept ). 110w pc (6400k)
and 40 w NO GE plant/aquarium bulb, 8 and 10hrs on respectivly. 
Aquaclear 300 filter, sponge only (recently added some filter floss in hope to clear water, to no avail.
Heavily planted with 48 plants from Aquarium Gardens (plants are thriving
despite the water)
Temp 78F, pH 6.2 to 6.8 KH 0, GH ,1 deg. trace ammonia, and 0 nitrate/trite. 
snails, 3 occocinclus, 1 surviving (out of 5) sherpe tetra. Fish introduced after 3 weeks of plants only to help cycle.
2 50% water changes in last 10 days have not helped. Blacking out tank for 48 hours helped a little, but green again after 2 days with lights.
I have a DIY CO2 reactor, but have not dared use it as pH is already struggling to hold 6.8 on it's best day. 
Should I just be more patient and wait it out? What kills me is I really put a lot of thought and time into setting this up, as opposed to my 1st planted tank, many years ago, where I through it together.......and it did just fine! I then devoted the last 5 years to my reef tank andthought that setting this planted tank up would be a breeze....not!. I'd apprecate any ideas on this....thanks. 

PS your site has been great, keep it up!


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## aquaphish (Dec 20, 2002)

Usually green water is common in new tanks. Just keep up a regular water change schedual.

The pH is not really bad. At 6.8 most people will want to know what you are doing to have a pH at 6.8. What is the pH of the water before adding it into the tank??

The water might have started to cycle when you added the fish and that is the reason that the tetras died.

Just give your tank a few weeks to stablize. It took around 2.5 months for my tank to stablize and the algae problems to go away.


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## jerseyjay (Jul 23, 2002)

firefish44,

First of all green water is not normal in new tanks. 

This is commonly called an "algae bloom" and is usually caused by too much light like direct sunlight.

One of your problems that I see is your KH. How can you have 0 dKH ? Your PH will be all over the place. You need to have at least 3-5 dKH to keep the PH stable. 

As for as green water I recommend the following.

- 4-6 days blockout. I know you try one but do this one for longer. Cover everything and don't worry about the fish for now.

- second option is product called Pro Clear by KENT. Although I'm not the biggest fan of chemicals in water, I know few people who were really sucessful with this in matter of few hours.

- third is diatomic filter. Expensive but 100% accurate.


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## Momotaro (Feb 21, 2003)

Before trying any chemicals, check with your LFS, you may find you can "rent" a diatomic filter from them.


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## Buck (Oct 13, 2002)

Hello firefish, welcome to the forums...

Just a thought here...
Since this tank is a new setup and you have stocked it well with plants I am wondering if you also "fertilized" the substrate when you set it up? Normally algae blooms such as the one you are describing come from excess nutrients in the water column and extended lighting periods. I see that you are running lights only 10 hours a day which is not too much _BUT_ if the water column is saturated with nutrients it will cause algae blooms.
:?: _*If you added substrate ferts to tank, have you buried them deep enough?*_ 
I made a terrible mistake in my newly setup 56G and did not get the sub ferts deep enough in the substrate and they are leaching into the water column and I am battling G.W. as we speak. 
Water changes and "black outs" will not make it go away if the nutrient source is still available to the water cloumn. It will help it but it will come back like you describe.

After going crazy trying to figure out why I had the G.W. I found 2 Jobe plant sticks that I accidently left only 1/4" under substrate when I was planting. Once I buried them and did a few small water changes, backed off on lighting for 3 days the G.W. is going away.

This also happened in my wifes 15 gallon planted tank (fairly new setup also) but it was a much milder case with lower lighting, I dosed her tank on a Friday with *AlgaeFix* and when she went back on Monday the tank was crystal clear with no ill effects to the fish or plants and the tank has not seen G.W. since... been 3 weeks now.
I tried that in my tank but since the "ferts" were just feeding the G.W. it did nothing, it just came back ! Some guys here have had G.W. problems after disturbing their substrate (with ferts) so I truly believe that this is a major contributor to Algae blooms. 
New tanks are more susceptable to G.W. and also Bacteria blooms because they are not balanced enviro's yet. If you have not added ferts yet then we will have to dig deeper and come upo with some more ideas but I hope this helps ya... good luck. 

*Buck* 8)


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## SNPiccolo5 (Oct 6, 2002)

Are you using RO water? If it comes out of the tap like that you are very lucky! But, your low KH is the reason you are having trouble with the pH. With a KH of "0", I would not add CO2. 3-5 dKH is good for a planted tank, since almost all plants prefer soft water over hard, and that pH can hold a somewhat stable pH with CO2. 

The reason your plants are probably thriving right now is b/c the available form of nitrogen to them is ammonia, which plants love. In order for plants to use nitrate, they need to spend energy to break it down to a useable form. However, ammonia is toxic to fish, and this breaking down of NO3 is pretty easy if you have provided proper nutrients, CO2, etc... for the plants. 

When I started my tank, I had your exact same lighting, and I got algae, but not green water. Recently I got green water from fertilzing and not having enought plants, and the blackout for 4-6 days works. It may seem scary, but it works temporarily. Like Buck said, this green water is from excess nutrients in the water collumn, so if you did sub-ferts, make sure they are deep enough. If the source of nutrients is not eliminated, then the green water willl just come back.

I know this may seem frustrating, I have had nights where I ALMOST regret getting the planted tank started (I'm in 9th grade and have lots of other things going on), but now that mine is coming together, I have no regrets what so ever. After I found this forum is when it started turning around. Good luck with the tank!

-Tim :fish:


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## firefish44 (Mar 29, 2003)

Thanks for all your rapid and insightful responses. I think this site will be very helpful. In answer to some questions that came up, let me add the following: Yes the initial water in the tank was ro/di, Which I had on hand for my reef tank. Subsequent changes have been with city tap water though, as I realized I was probably stripping out essential elements in RO/DI. Our city water here is excellent, but very inert (negligable GH and KH, pH 7.0) I added Seachem "prime" to take care of any chlorines, ect.

Buck, no fetilizers at all have been added, either to the water or substrate. I don't know if the plants would have had any residual on them (they had planty of little snails ). Dr Jay,Yes my pH has been bouncing all over, I realize I'm probably going to have to add something to get the KH up, but I really want to keep things as natural and low tech as possible.

Now the good news is that the water seems less green and more of a whitish cloudy today, pH still 6.4. I think that a few more water changes and patience will be needed here and things will stabilize.


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## firefish44 (Mar 29, 2003)

The black-out session worked, but only temporarity. The water is not so much green now, just cloudy, despite a 50% change yesterday. pH 6.2 in am to 6.8 in pm, ammonia 0, nitiate 0, nitrite 0, KH 1, GH 3, Temp. 78F.
The only filter is that Aquaclear 300 with foam block only, also a microjet powerhead (lowflow) to aid water cirulation. Am i "underfiltered"? Plants are dense and thriving, no additional fish added ( only have 1 tetra & 3ottocinlus). No visible algea on plants. In my salt tank I have occasionally used "chemi-Pure" media for clean-ups, any experiences with this or other freshwater clarifiyers? I'm trying to keep it as chemical free as possible.


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## ridns (Aug 9, 2002)

I don't know why anyone hasn't advised you that baking soda will bring your kh up and help to stabilize your ph. Go slowly, add 1 teaspoon, wait a few hours and check, repeat as needed until you are close to 5. You want at least 5 for your kh reading. You will find that when you have your kh in check the ph will have come along. Once your tank had stabilised it will settle down.


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## Rex Grigg (Dec 10, 2002)

IMHO I think you are under filtered and have way too little water circulation in your 55 gallon. One question. Did any of your plants come in rock wool? If so did you get it all off the roots?


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## GulfCoastAquarian (Jul 30, 2002)

I second ridns's recommendation for Baking Soda. This won't make things any more complex or high tech. Once you get your KH up to around 5, it should stay there. When you do a water change, you'll have to add a bit more to the tap water, but that's about it.

Aside from that, I really can't figure out how your 48 plants can be growing in almost sterile water! No nitrates, low KH, good light. You've got light, but no nutrients for your plants to grow. Algae is so versatile, it can grow on even trace amounts of nutrients. I'm not sure increasing filtration will help. I know you didn't want to get too complicated, but with your decent lighting, it is time to start thinking about dosing micro and macro nutrients.


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## firefish44 (Mar 29, 2003)

Thanks, shame on me for not thinking about the baking soda! The first teaspoons have been added.
Rex, I was under the impression from all I have read that you really don't want your plants subjected to much water turbulance (unlike in my reef tank), thats why I just used a small powerhead. Also, some of the fish I'm hoping to introduce in the future prefer calm waters. I was wondering if I was lacking mechanical filtration with the HOB filter only. The plants did not have any rock wool. 
Gulfcoast, I do have some "Flourish" on hand, but have been hesitant to add anything for the plants that might encourage the algea at this point. The flourite is still new enough that the plants must be doing ok due to that. I also have a DIY Co2 ssystem ready to go, but want to stabilize things 1st.


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## firefish44 (Mar 29, 2003)

It looks like the pH has stabilized finally around 6.8 to 7.0, but if I don't change at least 50% of the water every 48 hrs it still gets green. KH and GH are struggling to hold at 2 to 3. Green hair algea is now also appearing on a few plants. Baking soda helped some, but at the cost of rising the pH to 7.6 so I stopped. Despite all this plants are growing fast and fish are fine. I have added a few ghost shrimp, 3 cory cats, a couple more otto's and 3 harlequin razboras, but only feed miniscule amounts every few days to keep excess nutriants to a minimum. How long should I just let nature take it's course here? Would a cannister filter help?


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## Karen (Apr 19, 2003)

Sounds like you have water exactly like mine!
I got so tired of fighting the pH swings, I finally changed my substrate from Fluorite to Seachem's Onyx sand, which provides some buffering capacity.

On the green water, have you thought of adding freshwater clams? I have about 15 in my planted 58, and in my very heavily stocked tanks(read way too much naturally occurring fertilizer<G>) i have them in the tanks at the rate of one clam per gallon of water. This has worked very well for me keeping my tanks clear of any hint of green water.

Karen


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## firefish44 (Mar 29, 2003)

No, I have never heard of freshwater clams used for that situation.WHere did you find them?


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## Karen (Apr 19, 2003)

I picked them up at a store not too far from me, if your store doesn't carry them, tell them they can get them from Ekwill out of Florida<G>

Karen


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