Strange floating debris?

[An t-iasg]

Hi everyone,
I have a 5.5 gallon tank that I had two bettas in, now there is only one. I've noticed that when cleaning the tank and doing the gravel vacuum, there are several small, floating pieces of debris floating around. The water is not cloudy. I can't see these little pieces until I stir the gravel around. The pieces are not alive. I caught some of the bigger ones, and they rolled up into a little mucus ball or just disinigrated. Sorry to be graphic, but I thought I should describe it as best as I could.

When I cleaned yesterday, there were more pieces than usual. The betta hasn't been in the tank for about a week. He's in the critter keeper getting medicine. The ammonia was less than .25, maybe about .10. The other parameters were ok. There are no live plants in the tank, and every other week I take off the airline tubing and wipe algae off it. It's not major, though. I just don't like how it looks. The glass doesn't have algae on it.

There's a sponge filter in there. Do I need additional filtration to clear these pieces out? I feed the betta once a day, and he eats everything I give him, the little pig! So I'm pretty sure that I'm not overfeeding and no uneaten food is rotting down on the gravel.

I'm using all tap water right now. I was trying out the RO/tap mix but didn't do it yet because the betta isn't in the tank right now.

Any suggestions as to what this is or what I can do about it?

 

[An t-iasg]

Maybe I should say that the pieces are white/opaque. The tank looks fine until I stir up the gravel, and then they appear.

 

[An t-iasg]

You're all going to pass up this opportunity to "yell" at me for my cruddy tank?

The only thing that I can think of is that I use more Novaqua than the recommended dosage. My betta has had so many bouts of fin/tail rot that I wanted to make sure his slime coat was ok. I also used Polyaqua for awhile. Some of that may still be in the tank. But I guess I'm just wasting it, and the extra may sink to the bottom and it ends up floating around whenever I stir up the gravel. Tonight I swept the gravel just a little (did my bigger sweep and water change on Sunday) and put the betta back in the tank. There were a lot of very small pieces, but no real big pieces. I'll have to use only the recommended dose of Novaqua, and stop the Polyaqua, and see what happens. But it will probably be about 4 weeks before I get all the old water out, and can see if my theory is correct.

 

[Allivymar]

Heh sorry An. I'd have answered, but I don't HAVE an answer. My tank always has crap floating around after a water change, but I won't touch the stuff so I dunno if its goopy like yours LOL mostly cause I think it IS crap

I do wonder if its the chem additions tho causing it.

 

[An t-iasg]

Thanks, Allivymar! I'm going to stick to the recommended amounts of Novaqua and see what happens. All the other parameters have been fine. You've reassured me that it isn't something to worry about too much!

 

[error]

I always see the same thing, I assume it's fish slime.

 

[notmuffy]

hmm, I am wondering if your beta's "bout of fin rot" is actually ammonia poisoning. How high did the ammonia get when he was IN the tank?

You said you had 2 betas in. I hope they weren't both males, in that case this may explain missing fin bits.

As to the white slime particles, I'm not sure about that one!

 

[An t-iasg]

Hi error and notmuffy,
Sorry I didn't see your posts sooner! The ammonia has been 0 and stable for awhile. The ammonia rose a bit in the main tank because the betta wan't in there. I dropped a few pellets of food in every day, like Allivymar said to do whenever I had to take the betta out for medication, and that would help keep the bacterial colonies stable. It worked well, I think, because the ammonia only rose to about .10. When I put the betta back in the tank, when he was all better, I put some Bio-Spira in too.

When I had two bettas, I had a divider!

Error, you see the slimy stuff too? What kind of filtration do you have? I have a sponge filter. It doesn't really filter debris out of the water, but it's a place for the good bacteria to grow. I thought that I might need a bigger filter, but now I don't think that would help. The water is crystal clear, until I stir up the gravel during a gravel vac and water change. Nothing floats around the water at any other time.

 

[error]

I do see the slimy floating stuff and I was using a Penguin 160 (older) HOB power filter. I would only see it when I stirred up the substrate and it never seemed to hurt anything....

 

[An t-iasg]

I don't think it hurts anything in my tank either. I was just thinking tonight, that I wonder if the gravel color is flaking off? The gravel is only 6 months old. That wouldn't account for the slime though...maybe some of the other bits & pieces floating around during a water change??