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White Algea


doghousedb
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I got home from work today and one of my tanks has thick white algea/slime on everything. It's about a half inch thick and waves in the current with 2 inch filaments. Yesterday the tank was fine.

What happened? What is this? I don't see WHITE algea in any of my books. Never seen anything like this grow so fast either. The conditions are wrong anyway.

Last night I did 50% water changes on all the tanks and the others are still fine today (I do 50% water changes 3 times a week). The only thing different about this tank was that when I turned the filter back on, after the water change, the impeller was jammed. I had a new one on hand and put it in, but not without a thorough cleaning of the whole filter unit (it's an Aquaclear). The unit was rather slimey considering I had just cleaned it on the weekend. I doubt the new impeller brought this!

The tank is a 25 Gal sterile tank with 6 young discus and an algea eater. They're all fine but the eater is breathing a little fast.

I don't get it?

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I have seen that before... every single time one of two things happens:

1) a fish dies... it's then covered by that slime-coating looking fuzz crap if I don't find it right away. Or in the case of my cray that molted last night, it was no more than a few hours before it started sliming up...

2) add new wood to the tank... new (even well-soaked) wood added to a tank reacts with something in the water and gets the same thing...

<MY opinion>

It's 'natural', there are ways around it, but the easiest thing I do is make sure there is a healthy compliment of snails in the tank. They feast on it and usually have a huge amount gone within a few days. Water changes and adding other chemicals usually do not help, as you're not treating the problem, your just supressing it from happening.

I think it's just the bacteria in the tank eating the 'dead' stuff... be it flora or fauna... and the slime is a byproduct of that reaction.

</MY opinion>

Where you say "on everything"... what exactly IS everything? Glass? Substrate? Real plants? ?? If it's on those things, then I am out to lunch, back at 1pm. If it's primarily on a nice bit of bogwood or what have you, then I might be on to something. Do tell??

"What's in the box? Come on... what's in the box?"

Brad Pitt, SE7EN

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