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	Green Water
matthew7e Small Fry Fish Keepin Chef Posts: 9 Kudos: 7 Votes: 3 Registered: 25-Aug-2006	Is green water harmful to my fish its a 55 gal cichlid tank. I know it's from sunlight but I cant move the tank and it only gets a couple hours of sunlight a day. I do regular maintainance and specs are good.
Posted 10-Sep-2006 03:20
sirbooks Moderator Sociopath Posts: 3875 Kudos: 5164 Votes: 932 Registered: 26-Jul-2004	Nope, it's perfectly fine. The only major problems with it are visibility, the fact that it makes the tank look bad, and that if it all dies off at once it will affect water quality. The algae that causes green water isn't harmful to your fish at all. And when he gets to Heaven, to Saint Peter he will tell: "One more Marine reporting, Sir! I've served my time in Hell."
Posted 10-Sep-2006 05:02
matthew7e Small Fry Fish Keepin Chef Posts: 9 Kudos: 7 Votes: 3 Registered: 25-Aug-2006	Thanks sirbooks,the water does not look that bad the rock work is growing a green algea that my chocolate albino pleco is starting eat. /:'
Posted 10-Sep-2006 05:30
FRANK Moderator Posts: 5108 Kudos: 5263 Votes: 1690 Registered: 28-Dec-2002	Hi, Green water in a tank full of fry is good. Green water in a normal aquarium is not good. Here is a link to help you when it gets too much, or you decide that you need to do something about it. http://www.otocinclus.com/articles/greenwater.html Frank -->>> The Confidence of Amateurs, is the Envy of Professionals <<<--
Posted 11-Sep-2006 06:07
Calilasseia Ultimate Fish Guru Panda Funster Posts: 5496 Kudos: 2828 Votes: 731 Registered: 10-Feb-2003	"Green Water" is not harmful per se, and indeed, the single celled free-floating algae that cause it are actually good fish food for small egglayer fry. However, like everything else in the natural world, there's a reason for it. In this case, the word you should wrap your tongue around is 'eutrophication'. Basically, what this means is that your water has become rich in the nutrients that these algae feed upon. Rich enough for them to bloom and undergo a population explosion. That could become bad news further down the line if these algae all die off for some reason, and their decaying remains precipitate an ammonia spike. So, what nutrients are present to allow this sudden blossoming forth of millions of algal cells? Fish wastes. Which in turn are broken down via the nitrogen cycle to ammonia, nitrites and then nitrates. Combine a high nitrate reading, with no higher plants mopping them up, with a high phosphate reading and lots of light, and wham - single celled algae multiply in droves. Even more so if they have access to dissolved iron in the water, though if your water is properly oxygenated there shouldn't be much of that, because most iron compounds don't dissolve well in oxygen rich water. However, one iron comnpound that DOES dissolve fairly well, even in oxygenated water, is iron nitrate! And if you have high enough nitrate readings, iron will be liberated from the substrate (again from those fish wastes) as iron nitrate, become available to the algae, and wham, algal bloom. The cure? Check your stocking levels first. If you have lots of large fishes in a small space, all of which are busy passing large quantities of fish manure out the rear end, and your filtration can't cope adequately with the loading, hey presto, your water becomes slowly eutrophied - loaded with the nutrients required for an algal bloom. If your nitrate readings are over 40ppm, you're starting to enter the 'risk zone'. If they're over 80ppm, a spot of sunshine is all it'll take to trigger a green water episode. If your nitrates are over 160ppm, you're looking at pea soup if the aquarium is sunlit. If you're only lightly stocked, and still getting "green water" episodes, then you have to start asking some searching questions about your water supply. Does it suffer from being eutrophied by sources beyond your control? If you are supplied by your water company with water from a source that is subject to agricultural runoff from intensively farmed fields, all those nitrate fertilisers are coming through your tap - you could be STARTING with 100ppm at each water change BEFORE your fishes have had change to urinate and defecate in it. Not good when that happens! Pays to check this out ... Now, the above should give you hints and tips on what to do on those occasions when you want to cultivate "green water". Why should you ever want to cultivate this actively? Simple. If you have very small egglayer fry that need a live food boost (e.g., you've just spawned some Pygmy Rasboras, which produce truly tiny fry) or you want to jump start a Daphnia culture, then green water is just the thing. Daphnia eat those algal cells, indeed graze upon them much as cows graze upon grass. So if you want to keep a Daphnia culture running, and you also want your Daphnia to be gut loaded so that they're nice and nutritious for your fishes, green water is one of your foodstuffs for the Daphnia. Fill a jar with water, stick it on a sunlit window sill, add some iron nitrate to it and watch that water turn into pea soup Panda Catfish fan and keeper/breeder since Christmas 2002
Posted 11-Sep-2006 08:29
matthew7e Small Fry Fish Keepin Chef Posts: 9 Kudos: 7 Votes: 3 Registered: 25-Aug-2006	Thanks for all the good information. I'll watch this tank closely.
Posted 12-Sep-2006 04:33
matthew7e Small Fry Fish Keepin Chef Posts: 9 Kudos: 7 Votes: 3 Registered: 25-Aug-2006	Edited by matthew7e Thanks all for the imput good info, I did the weekly water change last night tested today ammonia o/ppm nitrite o.ppm ph7.2 high range ph 7.4. I will check levels more often. It does'nt look like peasoup yet.
Posted 12-Sep-2006 04:38


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