RE: [AGA-Member] Green Water Problem

["Phil Edwards" <biotypical@hotmail.com>]

Stephane,

Green Water can be a horrible curse or a wonderful blessing, most often it's 
both.  :)  My guess is the additional soil underneath your Flourite is 
creating some uncontrolled nutrient release.  The general consensus on GW is 
that it's sparked by an increase in Ammonia/Ammonium in the water column.  I 
tend to get it after a major revamping of an established aquarium where the 
substrate gets mixed up and releases all sorts of goodies into the water.  
My guess is that your soil is doing the same thing.  If that were my tank my 
first response after doing something as drastic as a full water change would 
be to remove the soil.  With CO2 enrichment and PC lighting it's not 
necessary to have a soil amendment.

If that's not something you're interested in your other two options are to 
get a Diatomaceous Earth filter and use that or just ride it out.  Diatom 
filters will scrub that stuff out in no time and you'll have a nice clean 
water column.  Since this doesn't address the root of the problem you can 
get multiple GW episodes until the cause is resolved.

The "Ride it out" method works well too, it just takes longer.  When doing 
this it's good to increase the CO2 to the upper limits of the acceptable 
range and keep dosing your fertilizers a little more heavily than you 
usually do.  It sounds counter-intuitive, I know, but trust me, it works.   
What's cool about this is the plants will still grow and the fish will be 
healthy, but most non-GW algae will be retarded or die off completely.

The last thing you want to be doing right now is to deprive your system of 
nutrients.  You want to get the plant growth stimulated in there in order to 
remove the chemical that is causing the GW.  If the plants aren't happy they 
won't do that and the GW will stay on forever.  Dose, Dose, Dose, Crank the 
CO2, and have patience.  It will go away.

I understand your frusteration, I've went through this a number of times 
until I realized what was going on and that GW is easy to get rid of can 
actually be a good thing.  Now,when I get outbreaks of less controllable 
algae I'll spike a GW episode and let it run it's course.  When it's done, 
voila, greatly reduced algae.  :)

I've been long-winded enough.  Best of luck and patience to you,
Phil


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