GREEN WATER SALT WATER TANK

Question
Hi i have had my 100 gallon salt water reef tank for about three months now, and just the other day i woke up and the water in my tank is bright green and its been this way now for almost two weeks? you cant see through it and im not sure what to do. So i guess my question is how do i get rid of this green water?

Answer
Blake,

Good question.

The cause is more than likely an outburst growth of green free floating algae and/or green plankton growth. This typically happens when the aquarium has an extremely high nutrient level. See the following check-list below, which may help you to remedy the problem.

Make sure you are doing your regular scheduled water changes, using reverse osmosis water. This will help to keep your nitrate, phosphate, and silicate levels down and in check. Nitrates, phosphates and silicates are all food sources for free floating algae / green plankton. Just to reiterate, having high levels of these compounds in your water, will cause an explosion in the population of these algae's, causing this murky green water.

Make sure your aquarium is not against a home wall, where it receives too much natural sunlight for several hours at a time.

Mark sure your aquarium's overall temperature stays between 72 to 80 degrees Fahrenheit.

Make sure your aquarium lights are on a scheduled timer.

Make sure you have adequate filtration, a protein skimmer may help, if you don't have one.

Make sure your aquarium is receiving adequate oxygenation, this is achieved through water movement via pumps, air-stones, and other aquarium apparatus.

Make sure you are not overfeeding your aquarium, this includes the overfeeding of both fish and/or corals.

Make sure to periodically add beneficial bacteria, to help boost your existing colonies of bacteria, thus boosting your biological filtration. One such product that works well for this, is Brightwell Aquatics MicroBacter 7. See the following link below from my favorite online aquarium store, that carries this product.

http://www.ocreef.com/brightwell_aquatics_microbacter7

If you make sure you are doing all of the above on a regular basis, you will soon be able to get your aquarium back to a clear state once again.

I wish you the best of luck with all your aquarium endeavors.

Regards,
David

All Experts Editor