Posted by PHSplendens on March 06, 2003 at 09:53:41:
In Reply to: Re: Help PLEASE, how to get rid of the green haze in my tank posted by TammyG on March 05, 2003 at 20:16:34:
: Thanks for the help. I did vacuum the gravel the other day,it was disgusting.I did the downstairs tank as well & couldn't believe the crap that came out. I read about incorrect lighting and have kept off the lights. I called the pet store & was advised there could be to much phosphate in the water and he had stuff for that. Right now all I have in the tank for fish is a cooli loach & alge eater (lazy fish, just isn't doing his job - hee hee :o) )
:One pet store told me if ammonia is 0 than I won't have a nitrate problem???I am going to tank a water sample to the pet store tomorrow.
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If your tank has been setup for awhile and you didn't have pea soup until your son dumped the fish food in, then I highly doubt your problem would be coming from too many phosphates. Either way I don't recommend adding any chemicals to your tank as they often do more harm than good. There are other ways to combat it, like adding live plants to the tank. Although it may be fine to keep the lights off while trying to clear up the pea soup, it's not totally necessary to keep them off all together. Generally normal use of aquarium lighting won't cause pea soup, but if you have the tank in direct sunlight or right in front of a window that gets a lot of sunlight, this will cause it.
Personally I wouldn't listen to any store that says you won't have nitrates unless you have ammonia, they don't know what they are talking about. The first stage of cycling your tank is the ammonia stage. Once enough ammonia consuming bacteria grow you will start to see a rise in nitrites, which would be the waste product of the ammonia consuming bacteria. About a week after you get detectable amounts of nitrites your ammonia will drop down to 0. Now nitrites are the second stage of the cycling process, and once enough nitrite consuming bacteria grow you will start to see a rise in nitrates, which would be the waste product of nitrite consuming bacteria. Eventually you will have enough nitrite consuming bacteria to where your nitrite levels will also drop down to 0. Once your ammonia and nitrite levels reach 0 your tank is cycled. Now nitrates are the final stage of the cycling process, and they will always be present in your tank. It is our job to keep these levels under control, and it is done by water changes and adding live plants can be helpful as well. Without regular water changes that are done either on a weekly or bi-weekly basis, nitrates will rise to a point where algae may take over, and given the right conditions may come in the form of pea soup.
PHSplendens
