What About Green Water? Control of Green Water in Freshwater Systems

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What About Green Water? Control of Green Water in Freshwater Systems

“Green Water” represents inhabited water with enough, and even excess Nitrates, Phosphorus and Iron to spawn the growth of suspended algae that’s living in the water column. It would be preferable for the algae to be on ‘surfaces’ and not impacting the ‘look’ of the fish tank.

Water changes –  will reduce the nitrates thereby reducing the ‘food’ used by the algae.

Reducing feedings will also reduce the ‘food’ available to the algae and finally, shortening the day-length with a light-timer (obviously not gonna work outdoors ha ha ha) to reduce the day-length to 10 hours or less.

This timer is the best because it remains viable even if the power is off for like, a day. What I mean is that you set this thing, and even if the power goes out, it keeps the time, and the program when to turn on and off the lights. Unlike the ones with the dial that are completely loused up if the power goes off. 
Two other crucial points about this timer are that it has TWO plugs and both of the plugs are THREE PRONG. You don't find that on all timers.  

You can drop most of the suspended greenish algae in the water as follows:

Most cases of freshwater haze do well with a little housekeeping, cleaning the gravel with a siphon cleaner and that never has been easier than with a Python. 

If you're looking for a quiet aerator, to drive a sponge filter, I really like the Tetra units because they're the leader in silicone flappers. There are other, cheaper aerators but the noise can be off putting. That's not hard to fix by putting such aerators in a closet or box. 

This is a higher-output aerator I really like, and the ones I've used the longest are the Eco Plus, Vivosun, Hydrofarm. I've had some of these running for, literally, years. 

This is the filter I like the most. It has no moving parts, it's all contained IN the fish tank, it doesn't suck up fish babies. They're easy to clean and they're a miracle at clearing hazes if you use a clarifier.  At left, that's a BIG filter, I use a couple of these in my 180 and my 220 at the house. 

This is the water clarifier that I use. And yeah, it's for ponds but that's where the economy is. It doesn't take much of this to treat the average fish tank. So it goes a LONG way. There's not much of a choice when you're treating a pond, the economy is "the only way to fly" when treating a thousand gallons. 

This is another one I've used for water clarification. It's got "okay" economy, and works fine. All the water clarifiers work VERY well with sponge filters in their many forms, but less impressively in canister and other pad filters. Clarifiers work VERY suckily in facilities with bead filtration.