How i dealt with green water problem

My tank is located in a sunny spot as it's too big to be kept inside the house. I'm sure many of you too got your tanks or ponds in the open with no shade.

The sun along with its benefits brings along some problems too. Well I wouldn't quite say this is a problem as it does not affect the fish health, but it can be a nuisance to owners as they will not be able to admire their own pond or tank.

I'm taking about green water. Many call it green soup. This is known as phytoplankton which is a microscopic algae that does not attach to any surface but exists freely in the water and spreads super fast in certain conditions.

Phytoplankton are a natural water conditioner. They absorb the bad stuff from the water and multiply their mass. Thus the water is better conditioned for your fish.

But now I'm going to talk about the bad side. I personally like to admire my fish on a daily basis and if anything, even this kind of good stuff block my view, I consider it a problem. So here's what I did to bring this problem under control.

Water change. Yes I did the most common thing most people will do. But what happens when you are dealing with massive ponds or tanks?

I do have the option of covering the whole thing for a week and then removing the cover. What this does is it starves the phytoplankton of light which is heavily needed to survive. The absence of light rapidly starts to destabilize it. Once starved of light for a week, the phytoplankton gets disoriented so when you remove the shade it can no longer handle the sunlight. One week's of darkness has damaged the chlorophyll. The dead phytoplankton settles to the bottom. One important thing to keep in mind is to filter out or siphon out all this dead green mass that settles to the bottom to prevent the bad stuff from being released back into the water.

I however did not do it this way. I reduced the water level to bare minimum in my pond. Then I continued with my regular water changes. I would say reducing water levels when anything goes wrong is a good way to get things under control and this rule applies even for diseases. It's easier to control a less water Mass. I will be maintaining shallow water level for a while till I completely eradicate this green water.

Phytoplankton is a very stubborn type of algae and it's so fine that no filter media can trap it. To combat it, do heavy water changes, good filtration, bio filtration, place a shade.

Hope this helps. If you have any comments or suggestion, please do so. Thanks!

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