My projects have crashed...

Gender: Age: 37 Joined: 06 Apr 2009 Posts: 116

As a bit of FYI for everyone...

I would not recommend purchasing and using "Algae Destroyer Advanced" by API.

I recently changed all my incandescent hoods to flourescent. Each of the tanks that I changed to flourescents have had an almost immediate green water bloom. So think in fact, that I cannot see fish two inches into the water.

So I decided to kill it off using Algae Destroyer. Well the only thing available was AD Advanced. Figuring what the heck, I made the purchase and followed the instructions on the bottle. What I thought was great about this product is that it states clearly on the front of the bottle "Controls many types of algae in freshwater aquariums containing live plants and fish"

Well, this is not necessarily the case. My Amazon Swords and Java Moss did just fine. The green water bloom and the hair algae all died... and in the middle of the green water bloom dying off, so did my Endlers....

I lost about 50 lime green endlers, all my wild peacocks, and most of my orange spotted. So there is roughly 120 bucks down the drain because I was too lazy to take care of the green water and hair algae problem myself by correcting water parameters and/or removing it through alternate methods of filtration.

Please do not use this product. BTW.. it does not remove brown algae as it states.

Len

Posted: 16.06.2009, 22:36 (No subject)

Thanks for the warning Len. I find that green water algae is not a problem anyway. I managed to establish some in my summer pond tub but when I tried to grow some in a bottle to feed to my daphnia, I failed miserably. No amount of light would cause the green water to prosper. I had the same starter culture that I ended up using in my tub but could not get enough artificial light to get the algae growing.

As far as I am aware, the only "problem"with green water is that it makes the fish hard to see. Otherwise I believe that it is harmless and maybe even beneficial to the fish.

Gender: Age: 37 Joined: 06 Apr 2009 Posts: 116

Thanks Gordon,

To me, a green (or brown) tank is an unsightly one. Nycguppydude sent me a great article on green water and how to remove it. It also had reasons for the water getting to that point.

Most of my tanks in my fish room are the Walmart 10 gallon jobs with the incandescent hoods. Each one of these had their lights replaced with flourescent bulbs, bringing the total WPG from 1.5 to 3WPG. That is when the algae blooms took off. As sort of a control, one of my tanks still has incandescent bulbs in it and I leave it on 24hrs a day. There are no problems with that tank!

You would think after 25 years of owning tanks, one might have an idea on how to properly take care of one... It appears I have many years of learning ahead of me!

Posted: 25.02.2010, 05:00 (No subject)

I myself have experienced losses from Tetra Algae Control which states is for use with fish. bad stuff. Be carefull using this stuff.

Gender: Age: 41 Joined: 07 Apr 2009 Posts: 97

I have never been using any kind of medicine or other types of fancy products to my water and my endlers dont care about green water anyway..
As Oldman say the only if its a problem is the are not easy to see in water whith algae..Think its good to keep endlers in Green water if you can control it
in youer tanks...

Posted: 25.02.2010, 07:50 (No subject)

Me too had the same problem w/ Greenwater/algae before. My flourescent lighting is 'On' more than the recommended hours most of the time...Even if I have Crypts and Anubias in my tanks, greenwater is a frequent visitor... I had eradicated it since I started floating some elodea...

Sorry to hear about that Len...

Posted: 25.02.2010, 11:30 (No subject)

Sorry to hear that about yor fish, Len...
Anyway, green, warmer, stagnant water vs clear, cooler, flowing water made the Endler different from its sister (sub)species, Guppy. Males better shine stronger in green water if they want to get a chance. In time, since they are so phenotypically flexible, they may decrease in metallic shine if kept in clear water, because other criteria will prevail in such environment in order to choose an attractive male.
My legendary neglecting habits fits the Endlers- only not too cold, and they will spawn weird, different and wonderful variable individuals if colony-bred in green water.
At least the time they spend outdoors - about 5 months- they have somewhat algae-rich water and various algae species to nip at their choice. I will even start a "dirty" small pond where I will encourage extreme cloudy green water and see what happens.

Joined: 22 Aug 2010 Posts: 8

It is a tragedy to loose tankfuls of fish. We all have made mistakes over the years and the stories we could tell.
Len, after your "clean-up" I am hopeful your vision has not changed and you will start once again.
I am sorry for your loss.