Getting fish tank green

Getting fish tank green

Here you can see my aquarium with newts, fish, snails and a bunch of aquatic and terrestrial critters. 

It's about a one year old aquarium with no water changes, no man-made filters or any pumps. 

It's a self-sustaining aquarium where plants, bacteria and algae keep water clean and pets happy. 

And mind that's all done without me doing much maintenance. 

Years of experiments with sustainable aquariums in small jars taught me a lot about it! 

Here you can see the same aquarium about one month after I released my newts. 

The water remains crystal clear. 

You can even see shadows of the plants and fish on the back wall of the tank.

 I am going to remove the land part with a bunch of plants to make space for new projects.

 I've been feeding my fish 3 times a week with enough flakes to consume in about 2-3 minutes. 

Just one pinch of homemade fish food flakes. 

My fish is not hungry - moving slowly to pick the food. 

There is plenty of live food in this tank for my fish to catch and eat at their leisure.

 November 17th, 2023. 

Let's give more food to the fish than I usually do. 

Two generous pinches of fish food flakes instead of one. 

And I will feed my fish every day instead of every other day as I normally do. 

Basically, I increased the feeding four times for the following week. 

Here you can see the aquarium one week later on November 24th. 

The common green algae has already taken over the aquarium. 

At this point algae seems to be unstoppable. 

And it is! 

No water changes, no filters, no reducing amount of light would remove the cause of the problem.

 Overfeeding is the main cause of algae bloom! 

Stopping overfeeding is the simplest and the most effective way of preventing algae bloom. 

Have fun and happy aquarium gardens :)