| Description: Indoor Green Water Cultivation from Scratch
(for HDB flat)
SPECIAL THANKS to bro HappyBuddha for his tips and list of steps to follow. | |
| Description: Begin (0 hour):
- 2 feet tank with 40 litres of de-chlorined water, no salt, no melafix, DEFINITELY NO filter, nothing else added.
- 2 feet PL light with 55 watt ebalast, white/white light tube (my bulb's rating unknown, sorry). Recommended bulb rating is 6500K (55 watt) and above.
- New air stone (old stone tends to trap beneficial bacteria)
- 2 cheap and "not-so-well-liked-by-me" and healthy young ranchus (Here, both are slightly lesser than 2 inch). Recommended to use bigger fishes because they are lesser proned to diseases.
NB:
DO NOT use sick fish as water will turn brown instead. If fishes fall sick in between, water will turn brown too. You can add a small clip fan (cheap) to blow away the heat generated from the light, as I have done. Feed the fishes with HIKARI sink pellets to build up ammonia level to kick start the algae. | |
| Description: Day 1 (24 hours after launching):
Water still clear with bits of poos floating around. The poos has been dispersed by the air stone to little bits. | |
| Description: Day 1 (24 hours after launching):
Top View. Can see clearly some poos inside. | |
| Description: Day 1 (24 hours after launching):
Can see the water still quite clear. The white stuffs floating around are the debris of poos. | |
| Description: Day 2 (48 hours after launching):
Water more cloudy. Tank full of whitish floating poo debris. | |
| Description: Day 2 (48 hours after launching):
Can still see fishes but not as clearly as before. | |
| Description: Day 2 (48 hours after launching):
A lot of pale greenish sediments on the tank floor. They appears in patches and look stuck to the tank floor. Cannot see the fishes as clearly as Day 1. | |
| Description: Day 3 (72 hours after launching):
Water getting more cloudy. Can only see shadow of fish when it is further away inside. Can see a line of brown-greenish stuff at the surface of water stuck to the tank wall. | |
| Description: Day 3 (72 hours after launching):
Some floating "stuffs" that flows with the current of water. | |
| Description: Day 3 (72 hours after launching):
Zoomed Side View. | |
| Description: Day 4 (96 hours after launching):
Not much different from yesterday. | |
| Description: Day 4 (96 hours after launching):
Except the suspicious yucky looking brown-greenish material gets thicker... eeee..
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| Description: Day 4 (96 hours after launching):
The fishes are discussing on how to escape from this yucky tank. Too disgusting... They beh tahan liao!
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| Description: Day 4 (96 hours after launching):
Not much different from yesterday. The water is still NOT green. Don't be fooled by the colour of the picture.
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| Description: Day 6:
Water has cleared strangely. The floating "stuffs" has sinked. I have also lowered the water level by 10 litres as suggested by HappyBuddha. It will kick start the algae faster | |
| Description: Day 6:
Top View | |
| Description: Day 6:
See the corner where there is no current. The poos and the floating "stuffs" have sinked and collected here. I will remove these later... | |
| Description: Day 8:
Water looks "greener" liao! I have removed the lighting stands so it is nearer to the water. The fishes have been observed a few times to be near the surface of water like gasping for air... must be dam stressed... inside too smelly liao! | |
| Description: Day 8:
Although I have cleared the sediments, it starts to build up again.... | |
| Description: Day 8:
Side view. Can see the greenish shade. | |
| Description: Day 8:
Can see those wall algae starting to build up. MUST REMOVE! These algae are not the ones that we want to cultivate. They will compete with the Green Water algae for the oxygen in tank. So I tilt the tank and wipe it off. This is also a hint that I am going the right way :) | |
| Description: Day 9:
Water turned quite green now. I can hardly see my fishes! Where are they hiding?! | |
| Description: Day 9:
Top View | |
| Description: Day 9:
Oh no... My fishes are missing.. Must file police report liao! | |
| Description: Day 11:
The water is more intensely green now. Still no sign of my 2 fishes :p | |
| Description: Day 11:
Top View | |
| Description: Day 11:
Two lines to compare the difference of stages. The top brownish line is from Day 4. The green line below is Day 11.
I conclude the experiment successful here :) | |
| Description: Shade of Green Water (before changing water)
This is a guildline posted by bro HappyBuddha at RafflesGold. "The red bar represents your fish swimming about 6 inches beneath water surface on a typical sunny day."
NB:
You have to change the water whenever the water turns to grade "5". Failing which, your fishes will get OXYGEN BURN and kill them. Save at least 1 litre of your previous brew as the "seeding" algae for the new clean water. | |
| Description: 2nd Brew:
OK, some ppl asked about what happen next.
I got a Toyogo tub as recommended by bro HappyBuddha. Yes it is better this way as I don't need a side view of future GW brew. Got wheel somemore - can push to toilet and wash tub. | |
| Description: 2nd Brew:
Remember GW must change ABOUT every 7 days. Also add in about 5-10% of original brew to subsequent brews as "seedings". Since this is only my second brew, I use roughly 10% as suggested by bro HappyBuddha. This is how it will look like, with a little tint of green. | |
| Description: 2nd Brew:
I have added another baby ranchu into the tub. BABY GANG! Let's sing the "Happy Song"
"Everybody, let's go to the "King"
We can dance there, dance and eat an ice-cream
Everybody dancing all night long
Try to do it, sing a happy song..." | |
| Description: GW with sick fishes:
Reference to the picture, the right tub has a fish that has contracted gill fluke disease. The water turned brownish tint (sorry the colour difference is not quite obvious in the photo). The tub on the left has normal GW colour (started on the same day as right tub), for reference to see the difference. So although you can't see your fishes due to thick green algae, the colour of your GW gives you tell-tale sign of the health of your fishes. Please refer to the "Vermillion" website on this. | |
| Description: Checking your GW:
Once you've achieved your green water, it's always good to check the subsequent brews (2nd brew and above). Fill an acrylic tank with your green water at the point of time when you want to change water. Let the green water settles (with no aeration) for about an hour. You should see the GW as in picture. The base being a little darker is ok. But if your green water settles down such that you see green base and CLEAR WATER on top of it, then your green water algae might have "died" somehow. | |
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