My water has been really strange this past week. Everything was crystal clear last Sunday but my monday it had started turning greenish. It coninued to get greener so I did a 25% water change on tuesday. After the water change it was very cloudy. After a few hours the cloudiness went away but it went back to green.

I did yet another 25% water change yesterday and got the same result as before. I thought it might be the filter cartridges needed to be replaced so I replaced one and will change the other in about a week so I don't screw up my cyle to much.

Heres a pic of my greenish water: Yucky water

Thats about the actual color of the water, not a trick of lighting. What you see is what I've got.

Any ideas of how I can get the water back to being clear or why its doing this?

What are the params of the tank?

My bare bottom tank gets like this at the end of the week when it is time to do a change.
Do you have alot of algae in that tank?

Params are: Ammo- 0 Nitrite- .25, Nitrate- 10, pH 7.8. I don't have an algea problem other than the greenish water which I suspect is some sort of algea. The only places in my tank that I have any algea is on the hidey cave and larger stones that I've got in there.

My tank with the big goldies turns green when its due for a water change but I've already done two 25% water changes this week thinking that that might be the problem, now that I've got the loaches and snails in with my goldies but I'm beginning to think that this isn't the case.

I'm starting to think that I haven't got enough light in my tank. I've only got a five watt flouresent bulb for my 30 gallons of water. Could this be partially to blame?

I know that light makes algae grow more so that would mean more green water I think.
Is the tank by a window? If so on brighter days the water can turn green more quickly, at least in my case.

I do suspect though that the cycle is still going so it could be in combination with a bacteria bloom.

30 gallon tank.

How many goldies and what filter do you use?

It looks to me like a free-floating algae problem. This can be dealt with by lowering light, upping filtration, adding UV, or doing dramatic water changes to rid the tank of the majority - 50-75% water change. Keep your bio-filter undisturbed, but change out the water.

Maybe?

I have had people use the various algae controling chemicals, but they are really just herbacides - not something you really would want in your tank of fish. I advise against this course of action.

You can add a "floculator" to your water, though. THey are relatively harmless - a clarifyer. What they do is cause the fine particles of algae/waste to clump together into large particles that your filter can catch and remove. You can also add a finer filter paper/floss, for a while to help catch and remove the fine particulate. This would need to be done when you are home, for it can quickly plug up the filter and shut down the tank's filtration.

hmmmmmmmmmmm......