Help my water’s turned green!

Hi Kathleen, It sounds like your tank is having an “algae bloom” and adding the Crushed Coral has nothing to do with the green water. Crushed Coral is, in my opinion, pretty much the perfect substrate for a DBT tank. By the way, your DB should start to graze or eat the Crushed Coral as well, but this is a good thing. My DB’s literally crush the coral gravel before they swallow anything………………you can actually see the coral “dust” coming out the sides of their mouth as the eat the CC. This is a good natural source of calcium for your turtles, plus this will keep their beaks and crushing plates in great condition (which is very important later for adult DB’s). Anyway, all the green water is probably due to the tank being relatively new and your filters haven’t had a chance to build up the good beneficial bacteria to eliminate the high nitrates and/or phosphates in your tank water. Too much light (from your basking bulbs) or sun light could be adding to the problem. Cut back on your feeding regime until your tank cycles and your filters can do what they were intended to do. Water changes will help a little bit and adding a “bio-booster” like Seachem’s Stability will speed up the process as well. UV Sterilizer’s are the answer to long term problems like this, but I think your situation is just temporary since this is a new tank. Here is a web link to a short article on Algae Blooms: http://freshaquarium.about.com/cs/maintenance1/p/greenwater.htm Remember, you need to OVER-filter turtle tanks big time. Your filter or filters should be rated for a 200 gallon aquarium at least. The general rule is to DOUBLE the manufactures filter ratings since our turtle friends are so dirty!!! Hope this helps, Jimbo

Hello again, Not sure about the well water, but most of the water dechlorinaters on the market are pretty cheap and the good ones (like Prime or AmQuel Plus) do more than just remove chlorine, so it might not be a bad idea to use regardless. Yes, your CC will need to be vacuumed down the road. You shouldn’t need to worry about it for a while since you just added it and it will take some time for all the crud to accumulate. That being said, I vacuum the majority of my gravel bed at every partial water change (every 7 to 14 days, depending on how busy I am). You have to siphon out the water anyways, so why not remove some of the muck that has built up in your gravel bed at the same time? It adds just a few minutes to the job and it makes for a healthy and clean environment for your turtles and fish………………….helps to keep your Nitrates down as well. A lot depends on how heavily stocked your tank is. If you only have 1 small turtle and 1 pleco in there, then you could go a good month or two in between vacuums. Take care, Jimbo