Help. White film on my silicone

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jenema

Aquarium Advice Activist
Joined
Dec 4, 2014
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I have a 10g tank that I divided for bettas. I used GE Silicone I to put the divided in place. I let the silicone cure for about 54 hours. The tank has been set up for 2 weeks with one betta and approximately 20 ghost shrimp (on separate sides). In the last 4 days I have lost about 16 shrimp and the others look like they are about to die too. The betta is perfectly fine with no signs of stress. While checking my water (0, 0, <5) I noticed white dots on the silicone. When I tried to scrape them off, a layer of slimy white stuff came off of my silicone. I can't tell if it's the silicone itself or something else.
Can anyone tell me what this is?? And what I can do about it? I only scraped off the one area none of the rest yet.

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I've never seen any buildup on silicone aside from algae. The GE Silicone I should be fine. I was checking out a reef forum on the subject and it was mentioned that the minimum cure time was 1-2 weeks as uncured silicone is a big problem. I'm not sure what the true answer is.
Question: are these newly purchased ghost shrimp or have you had them for a while (in a different tank)? New shrimp are a variable unto themselves and the silicone may or may not be a factor at all.
Wish I had a more helpful answer.
 
I get " bio slime " on my airline tubes that are hanging in the tanks[my fish room is crazy?]...
I think it is bio slime? no harm to any of my babies.....I do wipe it off with a scrubby.
As for cure time of silicone I am on the overly conservative frame of mind...
For your application not as long as it is not structural but I think weeks if not more then months myself...This comes from over 35 years of buying new tanks with made on dates that were never less then 90 days.... Lots of other explanations for that though also...
 
I get " bio slime " on my airline tubes that are hanging in the tanks[my fish room is crazy?]...
I think it is bio slime? no harm to any of my babies.....I do wipe it off with a scrubby.
As for cure time of silicone I am on the overly conservative frame of mind...
For your application not as long as it is not structural but I think weeks if not more then months myself...This comes from over 35 years of buying new tanks with made on dates that were never less then 90 days.... Lots of other explanations for that though also...

I don't think it's bio film because when it comes off it flakes off in chunks

Sent from my LGLS991 using Aquarium Advice mobile app
 
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