Lighting Questio...

[Jasonator]

Over Christmas, I set up a 10gal for my gf's sister. Bought used, I had this little guy going for a few months with various occupants and had a major hairy algae bloom.

The canopy has an incandescent fixture and it came with 2 cfl bulbs (the power-efficient twisty ones - 7W, I think). The tank never saw natural light.

I cleaned the tank very well - and anything else that was in there that went with the gift 'package'. I got rid of the sand and put new store-bought gravel in.

Now she has a green water problem.... WTH?

I'm going to dig out my diatom filter and give it a go tomorrow. That will clear things up, and hopefully that's that.

Any advice?

[AWW]

algae can be a pain, but its not to difficult to combat. 2 things it needs to survive, oxygen, and light. Take away one of these things, and you will see a huge improvement. If you have no plants in the tank, You can shut off your light for a week or so and that green water should disappear. If you have other algae growing on plants like hairy algae or black beard algae, pick up some metricide or excel and that should eventually clear it up for you.

Also, filter floss should help with green water algae. And, if you have these problems persist, and want to permanently deal with it, grab a UV sterilizer!

Alex

[TomC]

How long do you leave the lights on? If there is daylight in the room and no plants in the tank, then you only need the light on to watch the fish.

[gklaw]

14W for a 10g may be a bit much unless you are really trying to grow something. Either plant growth or or algae bloom ?

[Jasonator]

I was going in that direction, Tom, considering each of those 7W efficient bulbs has lighting roughly equal to a 60W regular bulb. And they emit a different part of the spectrum, too, I don't know too much about this stuff (google university will teach me, I'm sure ), but they claim to be a more 'natural' light, so no wonder the green!!

I put my diatom filter on the tank today and, as usual, chrystal clear in no time So I hope it lasts...

[neven]

try popping in 2 5W bulbs instead, you'll cut back from 800 lumens to around 500. You can also try to rig the fixture up on top of the rim instead of in the rim (dont use wood, it expands and will bow out the glass), the combination of both will likely cut down the algae outbreakd greatly.

[Jasonator]

Agreed, neven, and they got some liitle coloured bulbs to replace. I really underestimated those cfl bulbs! O well, live and learn.