green water

[packman9111]

just returned from vacation to find my tank so green that i can't tell who's alive and who's not. i made the mistake in the begining of using tap. system's been going for about a month and tank has cycled. Amonia 0, nitrite 0, nitrate 0 (which suprised me), PH around 8.2. I haven't tested other params. the tank is 26g BF, 45lbs fiji LR fm Marine Depot Live and assortment of snails, herms and one blue damsel. Started w/seaclone which was pulling lots of junk, but upgraded to remora which just added before leaving for vacation. Both skimmers were running while I was gone. Also just invested in RO and only had a chance to make one 3-4g change with RO water before I left. I had ditom when I left and knew the cleaning crew were having trouble keeping up. Made another 3-4g WC when I got home and mixed about 8g more water for tomorrow and plan to only run the lights for a couple of hours tomorrow. Is there anything else I should be doing? BTW not that it really matters, but only the remora is running now.

any help appreciated - rick

 

[Anonymous]

How bad is your tap water? Will it be too much trouble for you to do a 100% water change? Since there are only a few snails and a damsel (aka, bastardfish), you may be able to solve the water and damsel problem once and for all right now... what do you think?

 

[Baianotang]

Hummm strange thing, its not a difficult problem to solve, what you are doing is right.

 

[ChrisRD]

Is the tank covered in green algae, or is the water green?

 

[packman9111]

water is green.

 

[packman9111]

Did 50% WC today and will do again tomorrow. Will see.

Thanks Rick

 

[ChrisRD]

The problem was probably the result of high nutrient levels in the tap water.

The water change should help (using high quality source water like RO/DI). Also reducing the photoperiod and running some activated carbon would also help in the short term.

If you have access to a UV sterilizer, that would also help (but personally, I would discontinue use after the water clears).