celaeno

after the diatom filter clears the water, will the green water come back after a few days/weeks?

peterh

Hello,

Those are the spots, where new roots will appear. This is similar to other plant I've seen.

Right now, I am testing the method as well. After 10 days, I see some of those spots an first roots under water. Funny: Just an inch above the water, some roots are coming out and are developing faster.

I cut twigs from two different kinds of willow to see if one is faster that the other. But it seems, 10 days is standard in wintertime.

Greets,
Peter

whitepine

I have a professor that does research with daphnia... and she is always growing green water to feed them. So, yes daphnia will work. They just won't last very long in your tank with most fish around.

Cheers, Whitepine

epicfish

Mine hasn't. *knock on wood*.

SKSuser

Crazy thought here, but it could be something new to think about.
Willow tea is sometimes used as a rooting hormone in organic greenhouses and stuff.

What if the willow is giving something to the water instead of taking something away?

I may try a little project with willow tea in the spring when my willows get new growth.
BTW, I have many black willow and am willing to share for the price of shipping. They won't start leafing out here in MO for a couple months though.

peterh

Hallo,

I gave up on the willow method this week. I had two kinds of willow in my tank, about 6 sticks each. After 5-10 days, roots appeared but it did not clear a bit. Then I tried a 5 day blackout (left the sticks in) and checked this morning: The water was still green! The roots on the sticks were quite impressive.

Ok, did 3 90% water changes in a row and cleaned out most of the muck. Appearently most beard algae died. Some plants started growing again during the blackout (Sagittaria, Crypts, Annubias, Echis, Hygrophilia). Limmnophilia stayed inert and my Lotus lost most of the leaves.

I dosed now NO3 to 8mg plus FE and PO. Wait and see ...

Greets,
Peter

celaeno

it's been 19 days since i put in about 8 willow branches in my 10 gallon. i took two out because they didn't have any roots. the other 6 branches started growing roots 9 days ago and are still growing.

however, the green water has not cleared but has gotten worse, maybe since i've been keeping lights on for 9 hours a day.

i've turned the lights off a few days ago and did two 25% water changes yesterday, so the tank is now less green.

i might just abandon the willow tree method because i just bought an internal 9w uv sterilizer. it was rather cheap at $29.99.

celaeno

well, the willow branches were in my tank for 26 days and had grown roots all over, but the green water has not been noticeably affected. therefore, i took them out and declare the willow method a hoax.

celaeno

beware of rotting branches. once you see them rotting, taking them out immediately to avoid infecting your fish.

my female betta most likely died because it was constantly swimming around the branches and came in contact with the rotting ones.

clearly, this method is only feasible for a short period of time, say 1 week, before it becomes a living hazard!

just get an internal uv sterilizer like i did and save yourselves some trouble...

AA Aquarium ¡V a reputable brand of quality aquarium equipment

peterh

Hello,

just a brief addition: I had a UV-C on the tank with the green water for 4 days before it started to clear. So it must have been a really bad case. It still has some white haze, and I plug the UV-C in every night.

Bye,
Peter