Help, my water is so green!!

[ceci]

I have tried water changes up to like 60% in an effort not to disturb my fish. I have a 55 gallon gravel tank and recently algae has been getting out of control in my tank. The water has turned green, there's nothing visible on the decor but the water is also too cloudy to see through. I've tried changing the water 3 times it hasn't changed. I have one oscar in this tank, what can I do to clear it? I thought about maybe switching to a sand substrate recently anyway, should I try that or should I do a larger water change? any advice would be great.

here's a current pic-

 

[Deleted member 149562]

Firstly what is your full maintenance routine, your full water chemistry and your lighting times since all will have an effect on what goes on in the aquarium.

If you are leaving the lights on anything over 7 to 8 hours a day, that is an open invitation for green water.

 

[ceci]

Firstly what is your full maintenance routine, your full water chemistry and your lighting times since all will have an effect on what goes on in the aquarium.

If you are leaving the lights on anything over 7 to 8 hours a day, that is an open invitation for green water.

maybe it's the lights since they run for around 10 hours I believe, try t do a water change every two to three weeks. I'll reduce the time but what can I do now? I ran out of test strips, and haven't had a chance to get more so I'm not sure about water chemistry.

 

[Deleted member 149562]

maybe it's the lights since they run for around 10 hours I believe, try t do a water change every two to three weeks. I'll reduce the time but what can I do now? I ran out of test strips, and haven't had a chance to get more so I'm not sure about water chemistry.

First of all, go to your water supplier's website and enter your post code to get a full write up of the water chemistry coming out of the tap

Then cut back on the lighting up time......might even be a good idea to leave the lights off completely for a few days (even with live plants that will not do any harm)...remove the light source will help remove the algae, albeit slowly.

Get another test kit as soon as you are able to....water changes should really be done once a week along with a good substrate hoovering session

 

[ceci]

First of all, go to your water supplier's website and enter your post code to get a full write up of the water chemistry coming out of the tap

Then cut back on the lighting up time......might even be a good idea to leave the lights off completely for a few days (even with live plants that will not do any harm)...remove the light source will help remove the algae, albeit slowly.

Get another test kit as soon as you are able to....water changes should really be done once a week along with a good substrate hoovering session

Found this if it helps-

 

[Byron]

First, there seem to be nitrates in your water so you should look into that. I'll move on.

Algae needs nutrients and light. Green water is unicellular algae. There are no higher plants in this tank, for understandable reasons, so all the nutrients that occur from feeding the cichlid will be food for algae in the presence of light. You should however be able to get this under some control. Do not overfeed, do major water changes, dig into the substrate at each W/C to remove as much of the detritus as you can, and keep the filter spotless. You will still see other types of algae, it is natural in any healthy aquarium, but that will not be anything like this green water.

 

[ceci]

First, there seem to be nitrates in your water so you should look into that. I'll move on.

Algae needs nutrients and light. Green water is unicellular algae. There are no higher plants in this tank, for understandable reasons, so all the nutrients that occur from feeding the cichlid will be food for algae in the presence of light. You should however be able to get this under some control. Do not overfeed, do major water changes, dig into the substrate at each W/C to remove as much of the detritus as you can, and keep the filter spotless. You will still see other types of algae, it is natural in any healthy aquarium, but that will not be anything like this green water.

I do have one small plant but it's pretty torn up since my oscar likes to push it around and bite it. Would switching to sand help make it clean or is it better to stick with gravel. I saw some people say that gravel is better for Oscar's but I'm not sure.

 

[Crispii]

A UV sterilizer can help clear the green water.

 

[Deleted member 149562]

Would that impact the beneficial bacteria in the tank?

Not always

I have one of these hanging in my 53 gallon aquarium (a 24w version - they come in 3w, 9w and 24w). Rarely used but there just incase of any issues such as green water, bacterial blooms etc

GKM Green Killing Machine | AA Aquarium

Turn Green water into Clear water in days with GKM by AA Aquarium

www.aa-aquarium.com

I have not noticed any issues such as bad side effects against the good bacteria etc. I have used Green Killing Machines for decades, not had any problems with them....the powerheads attached give a really decent flow too so can help with surface aggitation as well as dealing with algae/clarity

 

[itiwhetu]

Put a whole lot of floating plants in the tank. Giant Vallisneria is also a good plant with Oscars.

 

[Colin_T]

The green water is caused by too much light & nutrients, and no (or not enough) live plants to use the light and nutrients.

Either add a heap of floating plants (as suggested by Itiwhetu), or reduce the light. Big daily water changes and gravel cleaning will also help.

Changing the substrate to sand won't make any difference.

 

[CarissaT]

Besides reducing the photoperiod to 8 hours you can also reduce the intensity of your light by raising it higher or putting something over parts of it so it all can’t hit the tank directly. Doing this plus weekly water changes of 40% or more with gravel vac will clear it up eventually as you reduce the amount of nutrients in the water.

changing to sand may make things worse because it’s harder to get dirt out of it without siphoning up all the sand.

 

[Aqua67]

I have tried water changes up to like 60% in an effort not to disturb my fish. I have a 55 gallon gravel tank and recently algae has been getting out of control in my tank. The water has turned green, there's nothing visible on the decor but the water is also too cloudy to see through. I've tried changing the water 3 times it hasn't changed. I have one oscar in this tank, what can I do to clear it? I thought about maybe switching to a sand substrate recently anyway, should I try that or should I do a larger water change? any advice would be great.

here's a current pic-
View attachment 166338

Just put some beneficial bacteria in your tank before you go to bed and when you wake up in the morning your water will be clear. This happened to me before when I was keeping goldfish in a large aquarium.