house lights?

[kagome]

My 20g tank seems to be going through some sort of algae bloom and I've got a bad case of green water. I was thoroughly perplexed by this. I feed nothing but either Flake Frenzy or Spirulina 20. I am very, very careful not to overfeed. I have the same stock in that tank that I've had for months and months now, actually fewer fish since the butterfly loaches died off. Stock in that tank is

2 ram cichlids
5 julii cories
1 clown pleco
1 angelicus loach

I really don't think I'm overstocked. Am I wrong?

Parameters are good

ammonia 0
nitrite 0
nitrate 20-25
pH 6.8

I use wondershells continuously, as soon as one is gone I add a new one. I have the same light fixture as when I set up the tank, I know it's not top of the line but seems fairly decent (although admittedly I am no expert in this arena), it's a GE Aqua Rays

lumens 950
watts 20
cri 67
kelvin 9325

This tank gets a 50% water change every other week and the gravel is completely vacuumed. I have a Via Aqua Vita Life 200 with a sponge prefilter attached and has carbon cartridge and bio grid in it. A Via Aqua 80 powerhead for extra circulation and a 12" airstone running for oxygenation. The only thing missing is a UV sterilizer which I know would clear this up and have prevented it in the first place but it's just not practical for the money on this small of a tank.

The tank does sit next to a window but the window has pretty heavy drapes on it. And the 38g is sitting next to the same window and has no trouble! Just to be sure I put aluminum foil over the end of the tank that is closest to the window. I've been doing 20% water changes every other day and the gravel is as clean as possible. When looking at the tank the water only looks like it's a little bit cloudy but when I siphon water off into a white bucket I can still see that it is a little bit green. I've also not been running the light very much during the day until this is back under control.

I have been completely dumbfounded as to how this started in the first place and I've read over Carl's article about green water several times to make sure I was doing things properly. The only thing that is different is that in this room there is recessed lighting in the ceiling in which we place compact fluorescent bulbs. The bulb that sits right next to the tank went out and my husband replaced it, this was about a week before the first symptoms started. Right away we noticed that this bulb is about twice as bright and instead of having that yellowish kind of light like the old ones it is a very bright white, almost like you see from LED lights. Could this new brighter bulb in the ceiling fixture be the culprit? It lights the tank up quite a bit even when the tank light itself is not on. Since there are four of these recessed fixtures in the room I could easily put one of the old ones in that closest fixture and move the new one across the room. What do you think? Could the house lights make that much of a difference?

[Carl]

Often lighting is the culprit, and your statement about a change in lighting add more to this probability, especially based on the more white color which will likely grow more green algae.

I should also state that an aquarium light looses as much as 50% of its light lumens in the range of nanometers outside visible light in a few as 6 months.
Changing aquarium lights would likely help as well (& help the fish too as good aquatic lighting benefits more than just plants or marine coral).

You noted a Kelvin of 9325, which is good, but is not optimum, as well the fact that the useless CRI is noted on this light tells me this light is not correctly designed for aquariums.
CRI as explained in my article is one of those aspects of lighting that has little bearing on benefits to aquatic or plant life, yet is still thrown around. Basically CRI stands for Color Rendering Index, which simply put is how the light affects what you see (in colors/contrast), nothing more.

I would change your home light to something different as well, since this is where the problem started.

Consider using a Medicated Wonder Shells which has Copper & Methylene Blue that tends to kill free floating algae (this is more addresses symptoms than the cause). Aquarisol or similar may help as well.

Vacuum under ornaments, gravel if you have not already, as hidden organic mulm feeds the problem too.

This article has a section on Green Water, but it is rather basic and I think you are already aware of the suggestions:
Freshwater Aquarium Care, Basics

Carl

[kagome]

Thanks Carl.

As for vacuuming under ornaments I actually take out all ornaments and fake plants before vacuuming the gravel. This is part of why I wanted to change the caves in the aquarium because when I would take the old one out of the aquarium for cleaning and fish would easily ride out of the tank in it and even if you flipped the cave over you couldn't see them in there. So I don't think that I have any hidden mulm anywhere. Also, once a month I take apart the filter and clean the media and prefilter with dechlorinated water to remove gunk.

As far as getting a better bulb for that tank I will have to send you some pictures of my fixture and get you to help me with selecting a better bulb. As I have said before I am really a dummy when it comes to aquarium lighting. I will look over the suggestions section of your lighting article and see if I can't get my brain to wrap around it a bit. If I can read Chaucer's Canterbury Tales in Middle English one would think I could understand something if I really put my mind to it, but I'm still doubtful. lol

[Carl]

Jan 10, 2010 0:30:34 GMT -5 kagome said:

As far as getting a better bulb for that tank I will have to send you some pictures of my fixture and get you to help me with selecting a better bulb. As I have said before I am really a dummy when it comes to aquarium lighting. I will look over the suggestions section of your lighting article and see if I can't get my brain to wrap around it a bit. If I can read Chaucer's Canterbury Tales in Middle English one would think I could understand something if I really put my mind to it, but I'm still doubtful. lol

I certainly understand kagome

Before you call yourself a "dummy" let me tell you a little about how I handle certain aspects o science and math (& a major weakness of mine in this area).

Unlike my Dad (which was a cause of friction growing up i might add) I have little analytical abilities, but very a very good "picture" memory.
For instance I have and still struggle with equations (whether chemistry, algebra, trigonometry, etc.), however if I can see an equation laid out in a picture format from A to Z the lights go off, if not I have to read and re-read.
This is one reason I either prefer to see a problem in person (as in my aquarium maintenance business where I solved many problems by thinking outside the box that often others failed to correct) or even now I prefer pictures and emails to vague phone questions.

I will add when I was in flight school (the ground/book studies part), I had an excellent instructor who could see that I was excellent in math (or science IF I could understand pictorially what was going ). During our study of ADF/NDB navigation he figured this out as he knew I was certainly not dumb but was simply not grasping this; a light went on in his head and he started showing me with pictures what was happening rather than mathematical equations, it then clicked immediately for me and I went on to get an 'A' in this section and later would always draw a quick diagram of an entry pattern on my lap pad when flying to better visualize what was going on since during these times in actual flight it was often pitch black or I was in clouds and all visual references were gone (this would be an area I got many compliments for instructors and FAA examiners)

The point of my long diatribe, is think you can understand this well, you just need to come at this from a different direction.
Believe me I do not simply read/research and suddenly write this all down. It is of coarse partly based on experience, however the area of lighting is similar to other tech areas in that research has far outpaced my experience and therefore I have to read and re-read and figure other ways to comprehend the subject.
The virtual radiator that I placed in the Kelvins section was something I stumbled upon (not my idea), this in a picture way helped me better understand how Kelvins which is I knew as a measure of heat for many years could also predict the light color & nanometer spectrum.

Carl

[babygeige]

Jan 10, 2010 0:30:34 GMT -5 kagome said:

If I can read Chaucer's Canterbury Tales in Middle English one would think I could understand something if I really put my mind to it, but I'm still doubtful. lol

This was really funny! I literally laughed out loud.