green water

Question
55 gal. live rock and fish saltwater tank, has been established for 6 months all test read normal. I just added more sand to the tank and I cleaned it 3 times before I added it and now my water has turned green and foggy. Re-done test they are all normal. Can you help with this problem, please ?

Answer
Hello Janie,

Can you pleae let me know what tests you did, and what the results are, so i may confirm they are within 'normal' ranges???


Also, can you pleae tell me what kind of sand you used???  usually we dont 'rinse' live sand... as you would be 'rinsing away' the live organisms that are needed for a saltwater tank...

Also, by adding sand after the tank is 'cycled', you are starting the 'cycle' up and starting all over again...

'cycling' a tank is a time frame.. during this time frame, those bilogical organisms that are in/on the live sand and live rock, grow, multiply to meet the needs of YOUR tank... each tank will be different and will need different amouints of biological organisms..

Until YOUR tank has enough of those organisms, youwill have issues like gren water, nuisance algaes, and you will need to do water changes every 3-4 days etc...

by adding sand later on, whatever 'balance' you had, is now off...



Please let me know what equipment yo uhave on your tank?  what type of filter, what type of lighting, etc...

Also, let me know how you do water changes?  where do you get the salt water?  how is the saltwater mixed?  

Also, how are you doing water TOP OFF... where are you getting hte water from and have you done any tests on that ater???


green is a sign of algae, and you seem to have too much of it, so much it is in the water column, and not getting filtered out by any filter pad / sponge/ sock...


you can also have some surface algae on teh tank walls, which will make the light and eveyrthing that shine through it a 'green tint'...  Make sure the glass is clean...

Also, make sure your light bulbs are clean and are the color you prefer... most LFS fixtures come with crappy bulbs.. and thier color spectrum is a bit, YELLOW..  (color temperature is measured in Kelvin, so bulbs might say something like 6500k, or 14oooK   or 10oooK  or 20oooK


the higher the number, the more BLUE the color..

and the lower the number, the more YELLOW the light will be..

And with the yellow light color along with blue water and the blue tint from the glass/tank walls, it is possible/probabl that is causeing the GREEN color in your tank...

AFter I get some more info from you, i might have a few suggestions, but i really want to get more info prior to suggesting you spend money, as it might not need it... and if you are like me, you hate spending money on things that dont work.. or didnt apply to the problem directly...

anyways, if you want to talk about this more, you can log onto my new forum at www.thelittleocean.com

and post a 'thread'/discussion.. this way you can get informnation from other reefers/members...

There is also a live chat box on that forum so you can chat live with me or anyone else who maybe online at the same time...

anyways, i lood forward to hearing more info and working with you to fix/resolve this

till then,  good luck

bill