Green Water

Boy do I have a problem with the water in Fred and Ginger Tank. As you may have guessed it's green. I have been doing a weekly water change but as fast as I change it it's green again. Yesterday I had a complete tank change around. I changed the gravel for sand and put in an under sand filter aswell as the submersed sponge filter. I realise the green is algae and I know there are things out there I can put in the water to help get rid of it but are they safe for my axolotls? Does anyone have any suggestions as to how I can control the problem. The tank is only quite small (18x12x12) but so are Fred and Ginger and apart from the algae it's clean. Answers on a postcard please

hi donna, you could get a snail to eat the algea. if you could send a picture of it that would be great. do u have live plants in ur tank?

Hi Alex,
I already have a snail (munch) he does a fab job of keeping the glass clean but the algae is in the water . I have a couple of live plants in tank they are growing so well I have to prune them.
Here's the tank (hopefully) as you can see the water is very green. Thanks for your response btw

My guess is that you have too high of a nitrate level, causing algal blooms. Water changes, adding more live plants, and more water changes are about the only things you can do. If the water is really cruddy, go ahead and do a 75% change, and add fresh water. You also want to do a baseline reading of the water you're adding, to see if it's high in nitrates.

Hi Joan,
Thanks for taking time to reply.Water changes and plants I can do I will buy a test kit tomorrow. A friend who keeps fish has suggested i try using a charcoal filter, does anyone else think this would help?

i also reccomend cutting down on your lighting- green algae thrives off it.
you say you changed all the substrate AND the filters? i think you'll have a mini cycle on your hands then.
are you meaning activated carbon? as far as i know that only absorbs chemicals ie medications etc but im sure someone else will know more on that one.

i think the charcoal/carbon might absorb the nitrates and other chemicals but im not too sure.

i started a discussion about aquariums on a fishing web site i got to, and this problem was brought up. one of the posters mentioned u can get filters with a UV light in them apparently this kills the algie ?
not sure though maybe try google it .....

activated carbon does not remove nitrates. The main way to remove nitrates is to perform water changes.

Algae blooms are the result of too much nutrition and too much light. Nitrates is not the sole factor that can contribute to a algae bloom, phosphates and iron can also cause or contribite to the blooms. High levels of phosphates are often the result of overfeeding (as are nitrates) but also can be caused by ground water supplies.

UV sterlizers can remove free floating algae blooms but they do not address the reason the bloom has occured and the blooms typically reoccur once the filtration is removed. One of the major problems with UV sterilizers and amphibians is that they do heat the water up.

A diatomaceous filter will also remove the suspended algae (water polishing) and can often be run without impacting the temperature of the tank (keeping in mind that the vast majority of aquarium pumps are water cooled).

Ed

Hello everyone,
Thankyou all everso much for all the suggestions. The water tests I did today reveal that the water quality is at the high end of the readings but nothing that is too worrying. I am going to do a 10% water change every couple of days, I have introduced another snail to keep munch company and added a carbon sponge to my small filter. I will now just have to monitor the tank and see what happens. I'll let you know how it goes.