Pea Soup Water

Friends something has happened in the last months or so with my 55 gal
planted tank. 2 Discus, 10 assorted neon's, 4 oto cats and three Cordy ones
together with a dwarf flame gourmie.

The fish seem and look healthy, but even with 30 to 50 % water changes
every three days or so I can barley see through the side of the tank. I
started this one in Feb of this year, cycled it and had a BEAUTIFUL setup
with crystal clear water. My pH (out of the well) is about 6.2, soft
water, and moderate hardness: seems perfect for the fish I keep. (85F)
Marineland 350 HOB filter and Fluvel XL2 both which I change. With the
water changes I use Flourish Trace, Excel and Comprehensive. (I stopped
using the iron supplement only because I thought I migh be overdosing with
chemicals.) My other though is to jack up the CO2 to 2 to 4 bubbles a
second to 'weed out the alge. As you can see I'm grasping at straws!!!

The algae seems to be the 'pea soup' kind, its not hanging on my plants
too much or encrusting my glass. The aquarium is NOT near a window and I
keep 2 65 watt CF bulbs on about 12 hrs a day. (Lately I turned this down
to 10 a day.) My water IS high in phosphates but I've had that before with
no major problem. I've even done the water changes using RO water to no
avail.

I remember a link on the net somewhwhere showing the various algae
descriptions and things that could be done to alleviate problems. Any help
appreciated, because as now I'm thinking of tearing down the whole thing and
starting fresh.

If you need more info from me just post here or at my email:
hogen10atyahoo.com. Thanks again!

Jim C

Jim Conklin wrote:
Friends something has happened in the last months or so with my 55 gal
planted tank. 2 Discus, 10 assorted neon's, 4 oto cats and three Cordy ones
together with a dwarf flame gourmie.

The fish seem and look healthy, but even with 30 to 50 % water changes
every three days or so I can barley see through the side of the tank. I
started this one in Feb of this year, cycled it and had a BEAUTIFUL setup
with crystal clear water. My pH (out of the well) is about 6.2, soft
water, and moderate hardness: seems perfect for the fish I keep. (85F)
Marineland 350 HOB filter and Fluvel XL2 both which I change. With the
water changes I use Flourish Trace, Excel and Comprehensive. (I stopped
using the iron supplement only because I thought I migh be overdosing with
chemicals.) My other though is to jack up the CO2 to 2 to 4 bubbles a
second to 'weed out the alge. As you can see I'm grasping at straws!!!

The algae seems to be the 'pea soup' kind, its not hanging on my plants
too much or encrusting my glass. The aquarium is NOT near a window and I
keep 2 65 watt CF bulbs on about 12 hrs a day. (Lately I turned this down
to 10 a day.) My water IS high in phosphates but I've had that before with
no major problem. I've even done the water changes using RO water to no
avail.

I remember a link on the net somewhwhere showing the various algae
descriptions and things that could be done to alleviate problems. Any help
appreciated, because as now I'm thinking of tearing down the whole thing and
starting fresh.

If you need more info from me just post here or at my email:
hogen10atyahoo.com. Thanks again!

Jim C







You could try this link - not sure if it is the one that you are
thinking of:-

http://faq.thekrib.com/algae.html

Cheers
Gill

Thanks to both for your advise. I think I'll just wait it out. Your right,
the fish don't seem to mind!!

Hey, mybe I'll connect that XL3 I have in storage waiting for my new 95
gallon tank! (More water being pumped thru the filter.) I'd prefer to stay
away from those Diamtom filters. I had one years ago and it was nothing but
a pain in the butt to use. The instructions were so unclear! (Like my
water!!)

Thanks again people!


"Steve" wrote in message
...
Jim Conklin wrote:
... I
started this one in Feb of this year, cycled it and had a BEAUTIFUL setup
with crystal clear water... The algae seems to be the 'pea soup' kind,
its not hanging on my plants too much or encrusting my glass...

I'm no expert, but I had green water for a while when my plant aquarium
was new (within the first month or two). The green water went away by
itself.

Your setup sounds perfect, and I'd just do routine maintenance and wait
for the green water to clear up by itself. That is, if the fish seem to be
happy and unstressed .

I've read that green water (suspended algae) is related to nutrients in
the water column, similar to greyish cloudy water (suspended bacteria).
The old Innes book discusses both.

Steve

Get rid of it fast. The worst part of green water is where you
leave it alone - as you've noticed fish don't care - and it
setles everywhere to the point where if you clean it up
it just comes back. That is for each piece of alage you see
there are 5 pieces you can't see hiding in rocks, gravel,
decorations etc.

I get rid of it by filtering the hell out of it with a diatom
filter, then stirrig up all the crud and repeating until thers
is no mess made by stirrig things up any more then I change 80%
of the water for two days then 50% per day for a week, then down
to 50% per week.

Flourish excel will kill it, but then you have a lot of dead algae
to deal with that rots and does you no good at all.

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