Green aquarium!

[Little red riding hood]

Hey all. I have a 90 gallon aquarium, with about 7 or 8 smaller fish, including 2 pleco.
I changed the water and within a week it's so green you can hardly see the fish until they are bumping the glass!

I fill it with well water, it's very good water, taste Good, but seems to support algea growth a lot better than I'd like.
What has worked best for guys here with similar problem?

[2011laramie]

Does it get direct sunlight?

[HowSwedeItIs]

Sounds like the water might have a lot of nutrients in it

[DougC]

^^^ Like was already mentioned above, sunlight will stimulate algae growth like nobody's business!

[pikergolf]

Lots of plants with help get rid of some of that phosphorus, your water is not near as good as you think either. Algae eaters, I like ( Otocinclus) will help as well, but if you have green water in a week your tank is overwhelmed.

[CBintheNorth]

An ultraviolet light is invaluable for keeping tank water clean.
Just don't go too big and be sure to shut it off at night.

[Sundancefisher]

Likely you have iron and sulphur in high enough concentrations you create and algae bloom.

Unfortunately you need a good filter and buy bottled water and do a 20% water change every two weeks with bottled water.

What you can do with another tank is buy freshwater shrimp eggs like “water monkeys” or fairy shrimp as well as dip out some daphnia from a local duck pond and raise your own food. Daphnia would grow like crazy in soupy green water.

[DisplacedCaper]

What state is your filter in? And is it adequate for your 90 gallon. We had a 70 gallon, and went through two filters that pet stores said will be enough before we got a big fluval 404 I think? Before we got it all under control.


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[Little Valy]

You need a large enough filter to cycle the water 8 to 10 times an hour
We have a 90 gallon tank and have 2 Aqua Clear filters(large hang on filters)
Best filters on the market for the price.Dont get me wrong,canister filters are good but to get the same water cycling you’ll need 2 or 3 filters and that can get expensive

[does it ALL outdoors]

Originally Posted by DisplacedCaper

What state is your filter in? And is it adequate for your 90 gallon. We had a 70 gallon, and went through two filters that pet stores said will be enough before we got a big fluval 404 I think?

I have a Fluval FX5 AND a trickle filter with a pump that pushes 900GPH on my 90, can never have enough water turnover. That is pure overkill but no such thing as too much filteration.

An airstone or two really helps too, I have an air curtain across the length of the tank across the back with a huge air pump, the more air you pump into it the more your fish will thank you

And as mentioned, sunlight is an instant algae problem.

More filter, more air

[Little red riding hood]

I have an emperor 400 filter on the tank, it is in the living room, it gets light, but not direct.
It's not near any Windows, but it's not in a basement either, the water is quite alkaline, not sure of the exact ph.

I built a sand filter, and it helped, but I think my sand is a bit too fine, it started overflowing after a couple days.

[ak-71]

I had a planted tank for a few years when I lived south of the border and I had to cover the side facing the window even though there was no direct sunlight. in my experience timing the light is essential, especially with planted it's a fine line between too much and too little.
If it's unplanted you might also have too much nutrients in the water, especially if you overfeed.
I also had Otocinclus and Nerity snails they helped a lot (Don't think you can get Nerity snails in Alberta though, they don't reproduce in fresh water)
I also doubled filtering capacity compared to what is usually recommended.

[billycap]

Sounds to me like over feeding... I have 2 20” pleco and 3 large goldfish in my 120 gal tank. I feed 3 pleco pellets and a tiny amount of flake daily. Any more and the water clouds up.