Easy Green

[Josh]

So about 2 months ago I purchased my first bottle of easy green. On the bottle it calls for 1 pump per 10 gallons. And it also says to dose it weekly. Which I’ve been doing. Since using easy green I’ve had to consistently do a 75 percent water change every single day just to keep it from going totally green. The picture is only 24 hours after my last water change. I purchased easy  green because I was told that it was super simple with amazing results. But since purchasing it I’ve been nothing but unhappy with my water quality. I’m tired of doing water changes and I’m honestly about to just take the whole thing down and be done. Any advice is appreciated thanks guys.

Edited June 25, 2021 by Josh

[lefty o]

cut down on the dosing.  for a short time id cut it out all together, and get the green water under control. then , then maybe half the dose, or even as little as half every other week. the green water comes from an abundance of nutrients, and light. the 1 pump per 10g once weekly is just an average guideline. if you only have a few plants, you wouldnt need as much etc. the hours the light is on could also be shortened to help.

[bettatester]

How long do you have the light on? How many plants do you have in the tank? It is hard to tell. Also, how many gallons is the tank?

[Colu]

What are your water parameters

[Nancy K]

Josh, sorry this is happening.

First advice - stop putting easy green in. If you can respond to the questions on your stocking (i see a few angels, what else is in there to help gauge bioload), your water parameters (especially nitrate), how long your light is on a day (is it on a timer also?), the folks here can help you get your tank back into balance and eliminate the green water.

 

[Josh]

My ph is a little high right at 7.8 my ammonia is 0 nitrite is barely there like the color isn’t quite .25 ppm. The nitrates are at 20 ppm. I have one scarlet temple plant an Amazon sword and a decent amount of Christmas moss. The live stock is 2 Khuli loaches. 2 angelfish and 1 sunset honey gourami.

[Josh]

My light starts to come on about 7 am, it slowly gets brighter and brighter through out the day. So like at 7 am, it starts off at 20 percent. At noon it gets to right about 60 percent. And at 3 pm it gets to 80 percent and that the brightest setting I have set on it. Around 7 pm the lights totally cut off.

[Josh]

And it’s a 30 gallon bow front 

[FrozenFins]

Aw shucks, sorry this happening! Must be frustrating!

The back of the bottles instructions for dosing is simply what they reccemend for the average setup, each setup varies though beased on the stocking, plant selection, etc. 

First things first, stop dosing easy green. Do waterchanges and remove the green water. to completley remove the green water you may want to get a towel over the aquarium to kill off any light (turn off the aquarium light too) and leave like this until there is no green water. After you can start dosing easy green back in, I would start at 1/4 the normal dose then slowly increase to maybe 1/2.

[BaRanchik]

I think Dean would love to buy all of that green water from you! 😆

 

On a more serious note, I'll add to what others have said here.

I'd say you should shorten the light period. Make it 8 hours total.

Also, stop doing daily water changes, you might kill your fish like that. You should approach this problem slower if you don't want to stress your fish too much.

If you decide on doing the blackout method, make sure you test you water daily for ammonia and nitrite, because dead algae will quickly degrade into these.

You could also try something like Easy Carbon, Seachem Excel, or API CO2 Booster. Those help reduce algae.

[GameCzar]

I've heard the light reduction and blackout techniques for algae getting out of hand, does this harm your fish if you reduce their light down in terms of duration?

[ARMYVET]

In my opinion and it’s just that …you do not have enough of a plant load to warrant dosing ferts in the amounts you are.  That coupled with 12 hours of lighting you have the perfect recipie for an algae farm.  

Cut back the lights and stop ferts for a while. 

[Colu]

On 6/26/2021 at 10:24 PM, ARMYVET said:

In my opinion and it’s just that …you do not have enough of a plant load to warrant dosing ferts in the amounts you are.  That coupled with 12 hours of lighting you have the perfect recipie for an algae farm.  

Cut back the lights and stop ferts for a while. 

I agree with @ARMYVET you can also add some quick growing plants like Hornwort or vallisneria or floating plants like water lettuce or Amazonian frogbit are great nitrate sponge 

Edited June 27, 2021 by Colu

[Daniel C]

I agree, way too much fertilizer and not enough plants. I've been there. I think some water wisteria would help.

[CalmedByFish]

I also have green water right now. Can't even see my fish - as you understand. 

I agree with the above: No ferts for now. Less or no light. A bunch of fast-growing plants. Lay low on the water changes for the fishes' sake.

In my limited experience, hornwort grows fastest and most reliably. It takes zero time to "establish," instead starting to grow immediately. 

But if you have trouble getting hornwort and/or decide to black-out the tank, consider pothos. It doesn't grow as fast, but it's easier to get, and you can have the leaves sticking out of the dark tank, getting light.

If you'd enjoy a clear tank, then don't give up. There's a way to fix this. 

[Tanked]

On 6/25/2021 at 9:01 PM, GameCzar said:

I've heard the light reduction and blackout techniques for algae getting out of hand, does this harm your fish if you reduce their light down in terms of duration?

Fish require light for several reasons and are better off with a regular day/night cycle (timer).  If you are asking about reducing the artificial light duration from 18 to 8 hours, the answer is no.

[Tinkertech]

I'm new,  so take everything I say with a grain of salt,  but hopefully any of the vets can back me up or correct me😁

Here's a few things that I noticed, that may help.  You said you have scarlet temple, amazon sword, and Christmas moss.  Both the scarlet temple and Amazon sword are root feeders, so won't use a lot of what is in the water column.  So, what you're dosing would have to be used up by the Christmas moss.  I would get some root tabs, and just put a couple under your sword and temples.

From personal experience, I thought amazon swords didn't grow all that fast (no matter what the internet said) because the one I had took 6 months to grow 3 inches.  Replanted in my 55 gallon with root tabs (and ez green for everything) and it tripled in size in about a 6 weeks and is sending out runners👍

Thing 2: from the way you described your light setup in guessing you have a fluval plant 3.0 (or 2.0). Those light are fantastic, i love mine,  but they put out more light than I could ever use. My 55 gallon is 21 inches deep and if I go above 70% I start getting algae.  Since your bow front is about 17" deep cut the light down a bit...start at 50-60%. If you want more light for watching your fish, set it to where you want...it'll be fine for an hour or two.  Also, don't know if it is true or not but I've heard that the 3.0's blue lights can help  cause algae.  Haven't tested that, but cut mine off to be safe and everything is still growing great. 

[CalmedByFish]

Just thought of something. Could a UV light kill off the algae in the water? I don't know the first thing about how they work, I've just heard tale... 

Somebody add info if you have it, please. 

[ARMYVET]

On 6/28/2021 at 9:37 PM, CalmedByFish said:

Just thought of something. Could a UV light kill off the algae in the water? I don't know the first thing about how they work, I've just heard tale... 

Somebody add info if you have it, please. 

Yes...a UV sterilizer would kill the free floating algae in the water column as it passes thru the sterilizer.  But that is putting a Band-Aid on an open wound.  If we treat the cause of the wound...no Band-Aid needed...not to mentionUv units are not cheap...the bulbs go bad and have to be replaced and use electricity and also add heat to the water. 

They do have their uses but in this case I know we can fix the problem without going to that extreme.  

[Phantom240]

On 6/29/2021 at 6:28 AM, ARMYVET said:

Yes...a UV sterilizer would kill the free floating algae in the water column as it passes thru the sterilizer.  But that is putting a Band-Aid on an open wound.  If we treat the cause of the wound...no Band-Aid needed...not to mentionUv units are not cheap...the bulbs go bad and have to be replaced and use electricity and also add heat to the water. 

They do have their uses but in this case I know we can fix the problem without going to that extreme.  

Agreed. UV has its place in the hobby, but in this case it's not the solution. 

 

On 6/27/2021 at 2:24 PM, Tinkertech said:

I'm new,  so take everything I say with a grain of salt,  but hopefully any of the vets can back me up or correct me😁

Here's a few things that I noticed, that may help.  You said you have scarlet temple, amazon sword, and Christmas moss.  Both the scarlet temple and Amazon sword are root feeders, so won't use a lot of what is in the water column.  So, what you're dosing would have to be used up by the Christmas moss.  I would get some root tabs, and just put a couple under your sword and temples.

From personal experience, I thought amazon swords didn't grow all that fast (no matter what the internet said) because the one I had took 6 months to grow 3 inches.  Replanted in my 55 gallon with root tabs (and ez green for everything) and it tripled in size in about a 6 weeks and is sending out runners👍

Thing 2: from the way you described your light setup in guessing you have a fluval plant 3.0 (or 2.0). Those light are fantastic, i love mine,  but they put out more light than I could ever use. My 55 gallon is 21 inches deep and if I go above 70% I start getting algae.  Since your bow front is about 17" deep cut the light down a bit...start at 50-60%. If you want more light for watching your fish, set it to where you want...it'll be fine for an hour or two.  Also, don't know if it is true or not but I've heard that the 3.0's blue lights can help  cause algae.  Haven't tested that, but cut mine off to be safe and everything is still growing great. 

You're actually pretty spot on with everything you've said here. The Fluval 3.0 is MASSIVE overkill for most tanks, and its blue light is less useful for plants than red 660nm wavelengths, hence why some other lights include dedicated 660nm red LEDs like many of the Finnex lights. If I were him, I'd start with maybe 30% max brightness, and work up until algae growth starts back up, as well as capping the 24/7 function to maybe 12 hours max (including sunrise and sunset)

[Lisa Oleary]

I am fairly new to the hobby, started back in October of 2020 after a 30 year hiatus. I did everything wrong . I had no idea about a cycled tank , lost a couple of fish. So grateful I found aquarium co op I have learned so much. I added plants to my first tank , I bought easy green as well , my tank turned green , my parameters are ok and my fish are doing good, I am still struggling-with my green tank. I do water changes every 10 days. I remember seeing a video  saying sometimes we stress seeing algae & a green tank but if everything is ok try not to over correct. That is what I did in the being , water changes almost every day & it didn’t make things better. So I am learning patience, I hope this helps, don’t give up fish keeping ❤️

[lefty o]

green water is usually indicative of way too much light, especially natural daylight.

[Lisa Oleary]

I think that you may be right, I have be keeping my shades closed but I may need to get black out shades

[Fresh]

That's pretty wild as I have a very similar setup/daily routine & never experienced any type of greenness. I use Easy green every Sunday and have a lot of light 

[Ozymandias]

Like many others have said, algae issues are very often traced to too much light. Green water like this happens from exposure to natural sunlight in my experience, or WAY too much artificial light.

In your case the Fluval 3.0 is a super bright light, and you are almost surely running it for too long and at too high of an intensity.

If you do not run pressurized CO2 and have slow-growing plants I find it helps to be very conservative with the lighting. Then, if that light proves okay, one can experiment with slow increases in either intensity or duration of lighting. On my new tank I am starting with only 7 hours total, 2 hours of which are ramp-up/ramp-down. I won't say what my settings are because I have a different light.

I think this video by @Irene will be very helpful. Note that she has a similar height  tank (I think?) and the same light, but she is using 30% of the total intensity for less than 8 hours (plus blue LED is not turned on).

Also check out this thread for settings other folks use. Pay special attention to the height of a person's aquarium when comparing light settings. The intensity of light is proportional to the square of the distance, which means there is a huge difference between the light received at a range of 12 inches, 16 inches, 21 inches, etc.

 

Edited July 8, 2021 by Ozymandias