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green water saga....



Well, this saga isn't as exciting as Episode II or sonic speed needle
valves, but....

The green water continues. Ed Dumas has been very helpful in walking me
through different tests and explaining things to me. My problem is what I'm
being told by my local LFS. I rented a diatom filter unit from them today,
and of course the lady there that has been giving me advise (I kind of tried
to avoid her, Ooops) asked what my readings were. I gave her this

May 24, 2002 pm
Tank water
GH		8
KH		5
Co2		37mg/L
NH3/NH4	0mg/L
Ph		6.6
NO3		0
NO2-		<.3mg/L
Fe		.5mg/L
73 degrees F (just turned it up)

She thinks my tank hasn't finished cycling. Ed and I both think it has and
that I just have an algae bloom to get rid of. I told her that I made a
water change the day before this test and she said that has set the cycling
back to day one. I asked how making a water change could set me that far
back? Isn't there good bacteria built up in the filter system and the
gravel, not just the water column? She replied that because I took some of
it out of the water column that the biosystem has been shocked and the other
bacteria has been setback. She said I should be showing amounts of nitrate
as a sign that there is good bacteria eating up the nitrites. I told her
that my tank if fairly heavily planted and the plants have been growing
quite a bit. I told her that after doing a significant water change (over
60%) that I could see lots more elodea and bacopa, all the plants have grown
quite a bit. My co2 levels have been above optimum for the last week and the
plants are pearling a lot. I told her that I thought the plants would absorb
all the available nitrate. She said it wouldn't absorb all of it and that
you would still detect some traces. Just before increasing co2 I did get a
10mg/L nitrate reading, but with the higher co2 it's back to zero. My hope,
and I think Ed agrees (correct me if I'm wrong Ed) that by doing some water
changes and using the diatom filter I can gain lead of the algae bloom and
out compete it with good plant growth. After doing that large water change
my water looked a lot better, but three days later it was quite cloudy
again. I'm running my two 40w compact 3500K lights for 10 hours. Any
thoughts from the group? Is my Nitrate story flawed?