Solving The Green Water Aquarium

Eugleana, also known as Green Water in an aquarium is a free-floating single-celled alga. This is one of the most ambulant forms of life and an essential part of the food chain. With the right conditions, these algae can be very productive. The name aptly describes the appearance. Aquarists often have green water aquarium problem shortly after the tank is set up, in tanks with more lights and/or after the change of the water or the use of chemicals that affect the biofiltration tank.

When summer day arrives, Aquarists often get problems like green water aquarium, they tank all green or even better. One easy way to resolve it is must keep the lights off at all time to avoid this problem.

How to get rid of green water in an aquarium?

What cause green water anyway? After a few years in the aquarium maintenance, I noticed that most tanks with green water in fish tank have the following in common:

1. 75% of the time, the problem happens within the first month after the tank is setup
2. 24% of the time, the problem happens after a major cleaning (large water change, filter cleaning, etc.)
3. 1% Others

Green water aquarium is generally caused by a spike in ammonia, and this is the reason why it happens so often in new tanks and also after excessive cleaning and water changes. I never encounter a Green Water problem in tanks with a good and strong nitrogen cycle. Strong light will help Green Water to grow better, but light alone won’t trigger it. After the initial bloom, it’s difficult to get rid.

When starting up a new tank, the best way I found to avoid this problem is to either keep the lights on for only a few hours a day or, even better, to use old filter cartridge and water from an old tank. Once the nitrogen cycle has established itself, all you need is to make sure to have sufficient filtration and not flush or kill Nitrifying bacteria.

There are many ways to get rid of a green water aquarium problem, but the following are what I have found to be the best:

UV Sterilizer:

By far the best way to solve this green water in fish tank problem. Just turn it on want watch it kill the algae with ultraviolet light. You can buy and applied the UV Ultraviolet Sterilizer to your aquarium. Today many canister filters that has include with UV sterilizer. You can use that filter such Aquatop CF400UV with UV to clean green water fish tank.

Diatom Filter:

I never tried this, but I have been told it does a great job. Unfortunately, I can’t say more about it. If you have experiences using a Diatom Filter against Green Water, please share it with us using the comment box bellow.

Blackout:

This can be a good way to get rid of a Green Water problem if you don’t want to invest in new equipment. You need to cover the tank with cardboards to block out any ambient light just for 5-7 days. Leave the aquarium lights off and don’t feed your fish for that period. Don’t worry about aquarium plants, they are strong enough to survive without lights for a good week. After a week, If there is a dead leaves, remove them from the aquarium then change the water about 25% of the tank. This should solve your green water problem.

Flocculants:

Additives that clumps small particles together might help by allowing your mechanical filtration to remove them from the water.

Micro Cartridges:

Filtering the aquarium with micron cartridges or diatom filters will successfully eliminate these algal blooms.

Depending on how severe the green water in an aquarium is it may take the blackout in combination with diatom and/or UV sterilizer.