Water in my freshwater aquarium is goin green. what should i do?

Question

Water in my freshwater aquarium is goin green. what should i do?

Answer 1

Change the water.

Answer 2

There could be a number of reasons for this:

Do you have an aquarium light? It should only be on a maximum of 6-8 hours a day (preferably in the evening). The light helps algae to grow so, if it is on too long there will be more algae growth.

If you don't have a light, is your tank in direct sunlight? As with the artificial light, direct sunlight will promote excess algae growth.

You should also be doing partial water changes once a week, you could use an algae pad to wipe over the glass at this time to remove any algae on there.

You could put an algae eater or a pleco in your tank (depending on what fish you have) as it will help keep the tank clean.

You should avoid over feeding your fish as this will dis-colour the water.

You can buy water polisher or anti-algae treatments in pet shops but, it is worth looking at the above suggestions first.

Answer 3

Green water is free floating microscopic algae living in the water. While it's not harmfull, it's ugly.

Algae needs two things to grow, light and nutrients.

So to control it you need to reduce the amount of light the tank is gettting. If it's near a window, shade it or move it. If not run the tank lights for less time each day.

Keep up the partial water changes to keep down the level of nitrate in the water.

But if the tank is getting too much light it WILL go green, no matter what you do.

Ian

Answer 4

Do a water change, which is what you should be doing once a week to maintain a clean tank with no algae.