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Green water algae blooms are not triggered by dechlorinator. Green water is caused primarily by excess light, and excess waste products.

This is what I think you should do. Do a large (75%) water change. Black out the tank completely (turn lights off, and cover the tank entirely in a blanket!) Don't feed the fish. Totally forget about the tank until at least Friday. No feeding, no lights, no peeking. Leave the blanket on the tank.

Then over the weekend (Saturday or Sunday), do another large water change (50-75%), and turn the lights back on. Consider removing one of the T5 tubes so you are just using one. Run the lights for 6 hours a day, maximum. Feed the fish 4 times a week, no more than this. They'll be fine.

When you do your large water changes, try to match the temperature of the new water to the tank water temperature as best you can, so you don't shock the fish.

Hope this helps.
 
I pretty much agree with everyone one here. Having said that given how the tank has progressed I would start again if this were me (im pretty fickle having said that :)

Mentally, starting over again might be worth your while George. There is absolutely loads of really useful info on this forum if you take the time to research properly before you start I'm sure you can improve this tank. Considering you haven't got a huge plant mass in the tank I don't think you're set to loose much.

If it were me I drain the tank, re-house the fish (are there any?), chuck the plants, rinse the substrate, thoroughly clean the filter and start again using the numerous filter cycling tutorials and threads on this forum.

I know how hard this can be. My tank looked awful when i started and by the time I finished wasn't the best by a long stretch but if you follow everyone's advice you'll hit the jackpot!

Read into power-head/filter output methods and flow diagrams and adapt your tank before you rush into buying plants too as it still looks like you can improve on your current layout.

This is just my advice but sometimes wiping the slate clean is a worthwhile strategy :)
 
I pretty much agree with everyone one here. Having said that given how the tank has progressed I would start again if this were me (im pretty fickle having said that :)

Mentally, starting over again might be worth your while George. There is absolutely loads of really useful info on this forum if you take the time to research properly before you start I'm sure you can improve this tank. Considering you haven't got a huge plant mass in the tank I don't think you're set to loose much.

If it were me I drain the tank, re-house the fish (are there any?), chuck the plants, rinse the substrate, thoroughly clean the filter and start again using the numerous filter cycling tutorials and threads on this forum.

I know how hard this can be. My tank looked awful when i started and by the time I finished wasn't the best by a long stretch but if you follow everyone's advice you'll hit the jackpot!

Read into power-head/filter output methods and flow diagrams and adapt your tank before you rush into buying plants too as it still looks like you can improve on your current layout.

This is just my advice but sometimes wiping the slate clean is a worthwhile strategy :)
Yep. That what my advice at the first but George said he working on his bike so money is a problem.
 
If it were me I drain the tank, re-house the fish (are there any?), chuck the plants, rinse the substrate, thoroughly clean the filter and start again using the numerous filter cycling tutorials and threads on this forum.

We don't really cycle filters here, we just plant heavily and look after the plants, then in 4-6 weeks if the plants are healthy, the tank will be safe to start stocking. I don't see the problem.
you could try putting floss in your filter for week and see if it helps clear the water.
other than that I'm not going to offer anymore help on this thread because its just going round in circles. good advice is given and then ignored.
 
Yep. That what my advice at the first but George said he working on his bike so money is a problem.

I dont' see any additional costs other than some plants, im sure there's somewhere here with a load of hygrophilia they can donate...?
 
I said before I'd just pull out the plants, clean them and the substrate, and replant. Is this what people mean by restart? Restart sounds quite dramatic, but a proper clean will only take an hour or two.

Green water algae blooms are not triggered by dechlorinator. Green water is caused primarily by excess light, and excess waste products.

I'd definitely agree that he's clearly got too much light, 2 T5s is a lot. But given that chlorine kills stuff, isn't it possible that its the reason he didn't have an algae bloom until now?
 
Highly possible that the chlorine was preventing the spores from developing, but the green water shouldn't be there in the first place unless you're doing something fundamentally wrong with lighting and/or feeding.

What's he suggesting anyway? Going back to not using dechlorinator in the hope to stop the algal bloom?
 
To be fair to George, he knows that he needs to dechlorinate now. The trouble is that, whilst his tank was struggling before, it was at least relatively stable. The recent dechlorination just appears to have revealed how fundamentally unbalanced the tank set up is by allowing the green water bloom.

George, I think you need to bite the bullet mate and just give the tank and its contents a thorough clean, as Rahms and sonicninja suggested. When you switch everything back on, remove one of your lighting units - you can always put this back on once the tank has grown in and you have enough plant mass to justify it.

And, for the love of all that is holy, take everyone's advice and reposition the filter outlet!!!
 
I guess it depends what you mean by 'start again'...I mean he only actually has a few plants, and no hardscape. He just needs to take everything out, give it a thorough clean, and put it back in again.

That is one of several things George can do that don't cost any money and will give his remaining plant and fish stock a fighting chance. The other key ones are aligning the powerhead and filter output, and removing one of his t5s. When he can get hold of more plants that should help as well.

There are probably other issues (e.g. has George mentioned any sort of micro-nutrient dosing yet?), but until he fixes the flow and lighting he has no chance.
 
Yes, he appears to have some fish that look like a variety of tetra. Re-reading the thread, he had some shrimp but they died pretty quickly.
 
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