Green Pool Water Parameters

[Jen]

Fist I want to say that although I've had aquariums all my life growing-up I never learned about cycling and water parameters. How my fish survived as long as they did is anyone's guess. Until recently I was under the impression that a clean tank was an an algea free tank. I finally learned recently when I decided to purchase a crawfish and a new tank to go with it. The lady at the store mentioned the need to "cycle" my tank, but with not other explanation of what cycling meant I decided to do a little research and found I'd been doing it all wrong. Needless to say I've since purchased a master test kit, KH/GH test along with various other water additives but the more I learn the more questions I have. 

 

I'm lucky enough to have an abandoned pool that includes a pond of green water. Out of curiosity I used my API test kit to test this green water and to my amazement the quality was better than any of my aquariums. 0 ammonia, 0 nitrite, 0 nitrate! I've never been able to get 0 nitrates on any of my tanks!! The ph however was a bit high, but a few drops of "ph down" fixed that problem right away.

With that said my question is are there any benefits in adding some green water to my current tanks? 

[35ppt]

Well I'm guessing there's a good chance there's a ton of stuff in that green water that you do not want in your tank.

[Crackhead Johny]

I'd save the green water and use it to grow daphnia (if you have fish of the right size in a tank).

 

Your 0s across the board are because the algae is eating that stuff. Adding it to a tank might give you a green tank. As algal blooms are something most want to avoid I wouldn't use it to cycle (not that a fresh tank probably has the nutrients to keep the bloom going).

[35ppt]

I'm even surprised they mentioned needing to cycle a tank; I rarely hear clerks telling people this.

 

[Crackhead Johny]

I made a mistake this week as all my tanks were set up with Caribsea ecocomplete.

I decided to do a new tank in play sand. You can guess what I didn't do.

[Vpier]

On 4/1/2016 at 6:29 PM, Jen said:

Fist I want to say that although I've had aquariums all my life growing-up I never learned about cycling and water parameters. How my fish survived as long as they did is anyone's guess. Until recently I was under the impression that a clean tank was an an algea free tank. I finally learned recently when I decided to purchase a crawfish and a new tank to go with it. The lady at the store mentioned the need to "cycle" my tank, but with not other explanation of what cycling meant I decided to do a little research and found I'd been doing it all wrong. Needless to say I've since purchased a master test kit, KH/GH test along with various other water additives but the more I learn the more questions I have. 

 

I'm lucky enough to have an abandoned pool that includes a pond of green water. Out of curiosity I used my API test kit to test this green water and to my amazement the quality was better than any of my aquariums. 0 ammonia, 0 nitrite, 0 nitrate! I've never been able to get 0 nitrates on any of my tanks!! The ph however was a bit high, but a few drops of "ph down" fixed that problem right away.

With that said my question is are there any benefits in adding some green water to my current tanks? 

If the pool is concrete, that will cause the ph to be high.

[Vpier]

18 hours ago, Crackhead Johny said:

I made a mistake this week as all my tanks were set up with Caribsea ecocomplete.

I decided to do a new tank in play sand. You can guess what I didn't do.

I think there is a thread about play sand being toxic ?

 

[Crackhead Johny]

I thought it was called play sand? Maybe it was called playground sand?

It was sand box sand from the hardware store.

Being used to eco complete I didn't wash it. So I may have lost a big fields stone moss rock, moss on some drift wood, some ghost shrimp, and a 3' tall Amazon sword (hoping its roots are still alive and that it comes back, its leaves are definitely fried. killed the BBA thought...).

I took down the tank and washed the sand. There was lots of foam and funny smells in the tank so i suspect there were plenty of biologicals of some sort in the sand. And to think, kids eat that stuff.

I then dumped a little bag of ecocomplete clearifier in the new water. It looks freakish now, like liquid glass. Clearest water I have seen in a tank. It is like you took the water out and polished it. So the tank is now aging with nothing in it. HOB had the intake filters from other tanks squeezed into it to help start it.

It is a shame another bag of that clearifier did nothing in the other tank with the Caribsea white sand in it. Still a light white haze in that tank.

[Jen]

On April 7, 2016 at 1:45 PM, Vpier said:

If the pool is concrete, that will cause the ph to be high.

Yes it was! The water turned completely dark purple! I retested the water after using a couple of drops of ph-down and that created the "ideal" water parameters. The water was still green though. It made for an interesting scientific experiment.