Fungal bloom taking over my aquarium?? What is this?!?!

[Abbitha]

Thank you so much. Will do that now.

 

[Masha]

Masha I was just going to tell her the same thing about washing the plants.

Good! Well, I hope it helps. This sounds like some scary stuff.

 

[Abbitha]

What's a good solution to sanitize my net before moving the fish. It's really gooey. It dried and the netting is stuck together. How do I transfer the fish without slime getting picked up with them and into the new bucket. It looks as though slime has managed to get in their temp bucket and already looks to have grown more in there.

 

[Abbitha]

It probably got in there when I was frantically netting fish and throwing them in there. Is there a way to get them in bucket without getting a little bit of slime too? Because I feel as though this is very fast growing.

 

[Masha]

I'm feeling very useless - all I can suggest is to scrub that net as well as you can to get any dried stuff off, and pour a lot of boiling water over it.

 

[Abbitha]

Okay so I poured screeching hot water over the net and scrubbed. Then I was concerned about moving the fish to the home and moving slime there too so I filtered some of their bucket water into yet another bucket. And put the filtered water back with the fish so there was a lesser concentration of slime in there and then repeated it two to three times until slime was hard to see. I double dosed prime into their temp home (30 gallon clear tote) and transported fish. The angel fish, guppies, neons and guarami look happy and vibrant with color already. Everyone is actually looking quite normal for the ordeal they just went through. Still worried about the otos and one of the Cory cats. But other then that, they look spiffy.

 

[The Trooper]

This won't really help, but could this thread and http://www.aquariumadvice.com/forum...ng-from-filter-output-287929.html#post2739683 be the same thing?

Remember to put a heater in there and get the temp upto (Gradually) 30'c to help with any ich.

 

[Abbitha]

I've provided a dark towel underneath to try and minimize stress and added some coverage from the ornaments. I was also able to find a spare air stone. I find peace and calm when I look at them. And then I turn to see my disaster of an aquarium and stress resumes lol

 

[Masha]

Sounds like you are doing fantastically. I've got to sign off now so hope things only get better from here on. Hang in there! Remember that you can only do your best - and that's what you are doing.

 

[flitabout]

I would say catch them in a cup and then strain the water into your hands and move the fish and not the water into the tote.

 

[flitabout]

Now I feel dumb I just saw you already got them moved.

 

[Abbitha]

Oh yes not one drop of that water got in the tote and I see no slime in their new home. If it did, it's microscopic lol. I'm currently cleaning the plants. It's much easier than I thought. I have a bucket of clean declorinated water and a bucket of water with the hydrogen peroxide in it. I'm dipping individual plants in one bucket, pulling as much gunk as I can off their leaves and then tossing them in an empty bucket to poor the mixture in. The goo actually comes off very easily except for the plants that have tiny leaves or bristles. Pretty sure I'll lose quite a few plants through the handling and stress but hey, if I didn't try it would be a given they'd die. What a way to start the month

 

[Mebbid]

In your situation I think it would be best to do a complete restart of the tank. The only two things it could be is either a bacteria or a change in water chemistry caused by the medication (although I've never heard of anything like that)

What I would do in your case is bleach EVERYTHING. Firstly replace the filter. Empty the tank and then add a 1 - 5 part bleach water mix and fill the tank with it. After the tank is filled run the filters and the heater. Let that run for a day or two then do 4 complete water changes. Refill the tank then add at least a 5x dose of prime, let it run through the filter, and then one last complete water change. It sounds like a lot but this much will kill everything in the tank and make sure to get rid of it.

Since this is also growing in the new bucket its even more likely to be a crazy bacterial bloom so the best bet is to do very frequent water changes. Before adding the fish back in the tank do a hydrogen peroxide dip to be sure to kill off any microbes attached to them.

 

[Abbitha]

I'll keep close eye in their temp home to see if goo develops in there too if so, fish can tolerate a hydrogen peroxide dip? How long do you think they can stay in that new tote I provided for them until the aquarium gets fixed. Do you recommend me buying a whole new filter canister? And what do you advise I do with the plants while this is happening? Thank you so much for any input.

 

[Mebbid]

I'll keep close eye in their temp home to see if goo develops in there too if so, fish can tolerate a hydrogen peroxide dip? How long do you think they can stay in that new tote I provided for them until the aquarium gets fixed. Do you recommend me buying a whole new filter canister? And what do you advise I do with the plants while this is happening? Thank you so much for any input.

Hydrogen peroxide dips are fairly common treatment for a lot of fish ailments. I forgot the dilution amount but will take look around for it.

If you provide some water movement via an airstone or some other method they can stay in there for quite a while provided you keep an eye on water parameters. I would reduce feeding to every other day just to be safe.

Just replacing the filter media should suffice or if you have a good media such as the ceramic rings I would rinse them VERY thoroughly and just keep them in the filter when bleaching.

You can just float the plants in a bucket of water with a light over them while you are getting things sorted out. The plants should be good for a while.

 

[Abbitha]

Okay perfect I have an air stone in the tote with the fish and plan on doing 50% water changes daily to minimize ammonia. It's not very big for the amount of fish an I worry I have delicate fish to be going through a whole new establishment so I'm really concerned about this whole ordeal *sigh* I'm always afraid to do searches online for ratios because you get so many different answers that I never know which is right. But please let me know if you find the correct amount and are fairly certain that's the correct amount. I don't want to hurt my fish. Especially my angel fish. He's my favorite one of the group

You guys have been so wonderful. Thank you again for helping me out. I feel without you guys I'd still be here just sitting and staring in disbelief of the mess that has occurred not knowing what to do. So thank you so much for getting the ball rolling!

Is there something else that'll help besides bleach? I cannot tolerate bleach like AT ALL. I don't have any in the house. And what do you mean by "complete" water changes. Do you mean emptying the tank completely and filling it back up 4 separate times? Do I wait in between the 4 complete changes or do them back to back to back? Thank you guys again

 

[Mebbid]

If blech is a no go then I guess you could try to soak everything in straight white wine vinegar. You could also allow the empty tank to sit out in the sun for a day although I don't know what your weather situation is like.

 

[ManicPenguin]

Bleach is incredibly toxic to microbes. So toxic that there is really no need to do a 5-1 water/bleach solution....such a high concentration would necessitate a gas mask in your home for a week...lol

To sterilize 50 gallons of water only requires about 2 tablespoons of bleach...assuming the water is clear and the expected bacterial load is relatively small. I have drunk lake and river water for years by putting a single drop in a canteen full of river water and waiting 10-20 minutes to drink it.

I would say you should only need to use about 1T/10Gal to sterilize your tank. Remember that bleach does not contain stabilizer and so will evaporate and be used up very quickly...say 6 hours with the pump(s) running.

If I were you I would dose the tank once every 6 hours and run the pumps. That will be enough to serve cold soup out of the tank after about a day.

At that small of a concentration, you should hardly be able to smell it even with your nose down by the water...way less than a swimming pool.

A higher concentration would sterilize faster, but with the addition of time...a very small amount of bleach will sterilize anything.

Use plain bleach. Don't get the scented bleach or bleach with other additives. Also, it is getting hard to find regular bleach, so know than my recommendations will work fine for regular or the 33% more concentrated bleach sold at Wal-Mart.

Good Luck!

 

[Mebbid]

That's the same ratio that I and many other brewers use to sterilize our equipment. It's quick, very effective, and a bit overkill. Me personally, I'm a better safe than sorry type of person so I usually go overkill. But that also covers my bases as far as things that can go wrong. The dillution you mentioned will very likely work, but that's made for sanitizing. It could possibly leave some organisms behind.

However with the bleach intolerance vinegar is a better choice.

 

[Delapool]

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All I could find - godfan has a slime mold issue which took about a month to take over. I think it is different but Rivercats suggests 8ml h2o2 per gal.