The Puffer Forum

My tank water was crystal clear a few days ago and now its a murky green...what is causing this? ...its gross looking and i cant even see the back of the tank

Here is how the water looks...

Waterbourne algae at a guess, a uv steriliser would certainly help if this is the case but getting to the route cause is more important. Is it in direct sunlight? You could try not putting the lights on to see if this helps. Have you got full water test results to hand?

Its not in direct sunligh not even close to a window... i just did a water change 3 days ago... I'm afriad when i get home all my fish will be dead. Imma do a water change again in the morning... maybe my filter is dirty? Pretty crazy stuff... I'm aboutt to flush its ehem* "tank mates" down the toilet maybe its a biolaod issue?.. is having too powerful of a uv source causing this maybe?

No water test results sorry I'm at work slaving for these end of month numbers.

Don't you dare flush anybody!!! Get us the test results when you can. Green water is still livable water.

It's unlikely bio- load, there can be many causes. Please do not flush any fish, this really grates on me! There will be a route cause we just need to take our time to find it, process of ilimination. Something has to be causing this.

You should never ever flush a live fish or invertebrate down the toilet.

....i would never flush a fishy i was joking from frustration . . I paid too much money to flush em .. my lfs down the road actually buys back fish so no I'm not that stupid or cruel. Ive been raised with animals and consider them equally significant as us mamals so sorry if i shocked anyone ...but anyway off my soap box i will get those water test resilts tomorrow before i do a major water change so we could all learn

defool89 wrote: ....i would never flush a fishy i was joking from frustration . . I paid too much money to flush em .. my lfs down the road actually buys back fish so no I'm not that stupid or cruel. Ive been raised with animals and consider them equally significant as us mamals so sorry if i shocked anyone ...but anyway off my soap box i will get those water test resilts tomorrow before i do a major water change so we could all learn

Thats good!

Take em back to the LFS and they may even give you a little credit.

Keep in mind the way a flushed fish or invert will die...By laying in a dark, dry, fecal covered pipe. Or making it to soupy fecal water and slowly dying of chlorine and ammonia poisoning as chunks of solid matter clog your gills.

*edit*
sorry, didn't check for replies. Good to hear.

This is why I'm so frustrated...that was 3 days ago, clean water...gaaahh but ill get it fixed

http://aquadaily.com/2009/01/09/algae-c ... -aquarium/

I found this. Sounds right. I will continue to inquire till tomorrow when i nuke the tank with cleanliness

Good lord, I had no idea that algae could multiply that quickly! Thanks for giving me the heads up on this potential problem on my thread; I wish you all the best on getting rid of this green nasty!! Oh, and I read that Seachem's Flourish Excel can act as an algae killer; perhaps that might help as well?

http://www.seachem.com/Products/product ... Excel.html

...Btw, a question. Will algae blooms kill off your biofilter?

Algae blooms are generally a sign of excess light and nutrients in the water, not harmful to bio filter so long as it is corrected.

Huge +1 to bertie's comment. Very often, an algae bloom is self-inflicted wound - folks get busy and do not test or do not partial the water or both. Diatom filtration will remove algae from the water column and from the system. Whatever you do, do not add any agent to kill the algae. Live algae is generally rell]atively harmless. Dead algae in mass can crash the tank by overloading the biofilter. Physical removal first and then check and correct any water issues.

FYI: an algae bloom can go from barely visible to opaque in 12 hours, 24 hours is common, 72 hours is pretty slow.