green water help!

[jdubys]

Went away on vacation and the water in my 55gal tank is green? I have been doing water changes every 2nd day for a week and seems to help. Cut back the light time to 8hrs a day. I figure they were overfed and no wc for a bit caused this. LFS did a water test and said alls good but the phosphate was at 5. Not sure what that means but she said to keep doing water changes and vacume up the gravel and it should help. I sure hope so cause it looks like crap. About how long of doing this schedual should the water clear u[ and go back to normal once a week water changes? Filters I have have some polywool in them to help things a bit Fluval 305 and fluval 4 plus.


J W :sconfused:

[smaug]

If you have 5ppm of phosphates in your water then you must figure out why.With numbers that high algae is a certainty.Have the shop test your tap water for phates.

[jdubys]

I recently replaced my light for my tank, from a aqua glow to a power glow. the aqua glow was very old and burning out at the ends. Would this add to the algae problem I have. I hope the water changes and less light time will help clear up the tank. Looks horrible. Going to do some changes to the tank tommorrow, New substrate and set up in the tank. How long should I wait toadd some fish I would like to get some Mbuna in there as soon as I can.
When you have algae like this can fish help you out or not.

J W

[smaug]

Fish will make it worse due to increased nutrients for the algae. How long has the tank sat empty? Yes new light bulb with full power would help any algae increase.Its not the light though,its the phosphates.

[jdubys]

the tank is not empty I have 3 fish in there, 2 Jack Dempseys and one oscar. Soon to be mbuna's. These three are going to a new home.