vulture9

Ok, some of you seasoned fish people out there may be laughing at this question, but I am stupefied. I have a 30gal tank with 1 big (4inch) pleco, 1 med catfish, several ghost shrimp, about 20 newborn mollies and 4 yound adult mollies, and numeous tiny snails. I do 25% waterchanges about twice a month, but the water is always green!!! I use waterconditioners to prepare tap water, I've also used bottled water, but the quarium looks yellowish-green. There is no slime or anything, but the water has a tinge. I check nitrite, nitrate, ph, and ammonia levels all the time and they are usually right on target.
Is the water supposed to look like this? Oh, I have only plastic plants in the tank, no live ones.

Please advise.

thanks

chickadee

Is your aquarium glass or acrylic? What kind of lighting do you use? Some lights just give off a type of greenish glow. If your aquarium is glass there are some that have a slight tinge to them (mostly older or used sets). I don't know enough about your set-up but I did have a friend who had this problem and her problem was the glass her aquarium was made of. She eventually had to get a new tank. It would be much easier to fix if by chance it just needs a different type of lighting.

Sorry I can't be more helpful. Welcome to Fishlore.com. Let me say there are many more knowledgeable people here than I. I am sure someone can come up with another answer for your problem.

Rose

Gunnie

I'd check out what Chickadee mentioned, and if it's not that, then it sounds like an algae bloom. I know your tank is probably not near this bad, but check out this algae article and let us know if this is what you are talking about:

http://www.plantgeek.net/article_viewer.php?id=9

If you are having an algae bloom, you may be able to control it better by doing more water changes. You can't overdo the waterchanges if your tank is cycled, so don't worry about that. I change out 50% in all my tanks weekly, and it seems to help control algae somewhat.