Green Water Removal for free

So from everything I've read, doing a 1-3 day blackout will kill the algae in the water.

I have a planted tank with 2 oto cats, 1 loach, 2 fancy guppies, 2 Glofish, 2 Cherry Shrimp, 2 coral shrimp, and 2 maybe 3 pinocchio shrimp (added 3 but never saw the 3rd one from the minute i added it to the tank so it could still be alive).

The lights are on for 10 hours. I cut them back two hours. No noticeable differences in algae growth since adding clean up crew and lowering light hours. I also only feed them once every other day now instead of once a day in the mornings. Only doing this till algae is gone. Then going back to once a day. I am only giving them a few crushed up flakes every morning and 5 blanched peas smashed once a week.

So I don't think I am over feeding. I think it was my light and my tank is near windows.

My ammonia and everything is at zero with nitrates being up a little. I also stopped dosing ferts but there are some root tabs at the bottom of the substrate still.

Now I have blacked out my tank and will check on it in about a day and a half and then go longer if needed. Also I did a water changed yesterday and will do one in 3 days once I remove the blackout from the tank. I will keep everyone informed.

I have not purchased anything to help remove the algae. This is a test to see how just blacking out works against Green Water. I put my old hood back on my tank and taped brown paper bags around my tank. $0.

Mind you I have a fair amount of fuzzy algae and hair algae on my plants and decorations. not so much on the gravel as the otos and loach do a good job on that.

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Permalink Reply by luis on October 2, 2012 at 5:04pm

I wonder how this blackout is going to effect the fish and shrimp in your tank?

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Permalink Reply by Peter on October 2, 2012 at 6:21pm

Won't affect them at all its actually a method people recommend wen your algae is out of control

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Permalink Reply by Alex on October 3, 2012 at 5:15pm

do you know how much of a water change i should do after I take off the blackout?

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Permalink Reply by Peter on October 3, 2012 at 6:51pm

U can do a 50% water change or even a 25% wc

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Permalink Reply by luis on October 2, 2012 at 9:39pm

Oh well good to know then

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Permalink Reply by Alex on October 6, 2012 at 1:28pm

So i took the blackout off today and the water is so much clearer. I lost one of my oto cats which sucks so im down to 1 now. Had 5 shrimp but can seem to only find 2 (1 pinocchio 1bee) and haven't seen the snail. My plants are fine. All the fuzzy algae is gone only a couple strands of hair algae left. The water is still tinted green but it should be gone after a few water changes