Knobbygirl Über Alles

Posted: Tue Nov 03, 2009 9:30 pm

Maybe this question is best directed towards Russ...

We have a 10 gallon fresh water fish tank with 5 Glofish, a snail, a red mirror barb tetra and an algae eater. Lately for some reason the tank has been overcome with algae (the water is green and totally thick looking). The other night we exchanged 50% of the water with fresh water and it's still green and cloudy. WTF?

Posted: Tue Nov 10, 2009 8:22 pm

Sorry it took so long for me to see this...

Russ says to replace the filter. What light source do you use? Sunlight? Bulb? What kind of bulb? Wattage and type? How old is the bulb?

You can buy a water clarifier, but then there would be no algae for the algae eater and you would have to supplement with algae wafers...

Posted: Thu Nov 12, 2009 5:33 pm

Ah, glad to hear some news. Because we have Glofish we use a blue actinic bulb so the fluorescent fish light up. There is a fair share of indirect sunlight in the room b/c it has several windows but no direct light. We've had the tank since August and this is the first time we've had the algae problem.

We replaced the filter when we exchanged the water about 2 weeks ago. The algae got thick again so we changed out half the water again a couple of days ago. And it's getting green again already. WTF?

We were going to try putting some live plants in there to see if it helps.

Posted: Tue Nov 17, 2009 7:38 pm

Have you had the same actinic bulb the whole time or is this a new one? Actinic bulbs last about 6 months and should be changed. As they degrade over time, they cause more and more algae growth.