• You are viewing the forum as a Guest, please login (you can use your Facebook, Twitter, Google or Microsoft account to login) or register using this link: Log in or Sign Up

Green Water

J

johnny70

Member
Joined
1 Dec 2007
Messages
637
Location
Bakewell, Derbsyhire
I have a case of green water, not really sure why :thumbdown:

Going to do a blackout first, see how that goes, should I turn OFF the CO2 while in blackout and NOT add ferts?

If this fails I have a UV filter that should help, again while doing that should I turn the CO2 off and NOT dose ferts?

Thanks,

John.
 
Leave them be, or add more. Can't really complete the analysis without knowing how much, how often, how big how much light, blah, blah, blah...

GWA is often triggered by ammonia spikes + lots of light so it's hard to tell what you did or are doing. Disturbing the substrate too much without doing a water change or having poor nutrients/CO2 can affect the ammonia loading rate, so the GWA can either be a primary or secondary response to a disturbance or to some other acute failure.

Cheers,
 
If you decide to do a blackout after the UV...
Any critters in there, then I would turn off the co2. If not, do not bother, just leave as is.
Fertwise, I do not know what is best, but if the plants have reserves I imagine a few days without ferts will do them no harm.

Never done a blackout myself though, so that is just theoretical advice!
 
Sorry, been a bit thick not putting the info up, sorry.

60lt tank, 24w T5 on for 8 hours.

CO2 in the yellow, approx 2bps. On 2 hours before lights, off 1 hour before lights out.

Ferts, stock solution made with 6tsp Potassium Nitrate, 3 tsp Potassium Phosphate, 15tsp Magnessium Sulphate (1ltr water). Dose 60ml every other day, trace, 3tsp (1ltr water) sode 60ml on alternate days.

Thanks,

John
 
OK, well the dosing is heavy handed, so that means you didn't get a spike from NH4 ejection due to deficiency. Have you been digging up the sediment, or did you suffer a filter failure, or did you not clean it - or were you doing something crazy like adding ammonia to try and quick cycle? It's always nice to try and learn how the heck you got into trouble....

Cheers,
 
Hi John
johnny70 said:
Ferts, stock solution made with 6tsp Potassium Nitrate, 3 tsp Potassium Phosphate, 15tsp Magnessium Sulphate (1ltr water). Dose 60ml every other day, trace, 3tsp (1ltr water) sode 60ml on alternate days.
Click to expand...
Well your plants will never go short of nutrients with those figures, that's for sure :D .
Is there any particular reason why your figures are so high?
You're dosing virtually the same as what I dose in a 180l, a tank 3x bigger than yours. :wideyed:
Not that it will cause you any problems, just that it seems a bit of a waste, that's all.

This was lifted from the EI tutorial for a 20 gallon tank which you should be able to use on your tank without issue. (Hope Clive doesn't mind.......again :oops: ).
ceg4048 said:
NPK (Nitrogen+Phosphorus+Potassium) Mixture for 20 Gallon Tank
1 month = 4 Weeks
3 doses of NPK per week
Therefore there are 12 doses of NPK per month.
Multiply a single dose teaspoon value by 12 => [3/16 tsp KNO3]*12 = 2 ¼ tsp KNO3
[1/16 tsp KH2PO4]*12 = ¾ tsp KH2PO4
[1/2 tsp MgSO4]*12 = 6 tsp MgSO4
Add these to 600ml of tap or distilled water

Now this mixture must serve 12 doses so each dose is 600ml/12 = 50ml
This makes life easier because you need only dose 50ml of this NPK solution 3 times per week.

Always separate the CSM+B from the NPK because it has a tendency to react with the phosphate. You can dose the CSM+B as a powder or if it more convenient add 8 * 1/16 tsp => ½ teaspoon to 200 ml of water and dose 25 ml two times per week.
Click to expand...
So your original 1 litre of NPK solution lasts 16 doses instead of the above mentioned 12, so at best you would only have to up the amount of powders by around 25%.
Unfortunately, none of this will help with your algae but it could save you a few pennies in the long run (especially on the Trace).
Hope that's of use.
Good luck in your battle.
 
No reason for the heavy dosing, apart from most threads here always say, add more ferts more co2, so I did :) and the plants seem to love it, when I get the water sorted I'll cut back.

Could be the filter causing this, we have had a series of LONG power cuts here sometimes 16 hours(the joys of living in the country) I thought my big water changes has helped, but it looks like they didn't, though green water is nothing to the £200 worth of livestock I lost in my other tanks.

Thanks,

John
 
Oh mate, that's a real shame. I'm sorry to hear about that. :thumbdown:

What you might be able to do when that happens is to keep the light off when the power comes back on. Barr describes the ammonia trigger as not so much the absolute value at a given point in time but the rate of production versus the rate of consumption. So it's the "loading rate" that's more important. The water changes definitely help, but algae are pretty goo mathematicians and can figure out an environmental decline pretty quickly.

Yeah, I'd much rather a heavy handed doser than some wimpy nanny doser obsessing over ppms, that's for sure. You're even more over the top than I am. I reckon that's at least 3X the EI baseline, which counts as Intergalactic dosing regime. I think London Dragon has you beat though. He invented "The Unassailable Multiple Order of Magnitude" dosing regime, so you're gonna have to start pumping iron at the local gym to match ole Paulo's heavy hand. :clap:

Cheers,
 
Thanks Clive, was a very distressing time, 9 tanks to look after and a full time job, power company were next to useless, even the temp. generator kept breaking down! Total of 12 powercuts over 5 days :( lost my L66's CRS and Royal Whiptails.

SWMBO had covered the tank when I got home last night, but I'll pop the UV in on Sunday.

Will the algae just go? or will it die and if so how is this removed?

Cheers,

John.
 
Yeah mate, the radiation kills the free floating organisms so it should clear up in a few days.

Cheers,
 
Thanks again for the advise mate. All the green algae is now gone, now the plants need to recover from the 2 day blackout, sure they will come back quicly with my nuclear powered dosing!

Cheers,

Johnny.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top