White Debris in tank

The friendliest place on the web for anyone with an interest in aquariums or fish keeping!
If you have answers, please help by responding to the unanswered posts.
How long has the tank been set up?

Often DW /driftwood will grow fungus but it seems to be attached.

Do you think that it is old food decaying?
 
Hi Autumnsky, thanks for the response.

The tank has been setup for at least 3 years.

It's not just isolated to the driftwood, it was just easiest to get a good picture of it on the DW. It's pretty much all over the tank, like it snowed :(

I suppose it could be decayed food, but I have never seen this before.

The only thing I've changed with the tank lately was to put the lighting on a timer, I was keeping it on too long, which caused some algae problems, but I've adjusted that since and I couldn't find anything related to "White" algae.

I'm hoping you are right and it's just decayed food.

For now, it doesn't seem to be impacting my fish, so that's a good thing.

I'm going to step up the frequency of my water changes and give the filter a really thorough cleaning and see if that helps.



How long has the tank been set up?

Often DW /driftwood will grow fungus but it seems to be attached.

Do you think that it is old food decaying?
 
Definitely NOT the usual *stuff* you see on newly added wood etc. I agree upping water changes os a good idea but I would be wary of giving your filter a *thorough* cleaning. Personally I'd take it apart to see if there is an obvious cause for the *stuff* and maybe give the media GOOD rinsing in *clean* tank water from a water change. It looks to me like some kind of particulate matter has either been blown into the tank or something was blown into the tank that then *became* this white *stuff* when it mixed with your tank water. The few timws this has happened to me it's been an excessive amount of dust etc in the household air from cleaning or the woodstove season start up
 
One step forward, two steps back....

1) Pulled out my filter, and it was definitely was pretty gnarly. It was definitely in need of a good cleaning. Got all the "Gunk" cleaned up, but diddn't see any "White stuff" though.

2) Did a 25% water change, picked up a lot of the existing white stuff from the gravel, so it's not sticking, that's good.

3) Primed and turned the filter back.

Result: All kinds of white crap blowing out of the return. Most of it was small dust like pieces like in the tank already, but much more of it and some larger pieces that were flaky looking. Really gross and right AFTER cleaning the filter?!

Best guess:
What ever this stuff was/is had accumulated in the tubing/nozzle for the filter return, there's no way that stuff was left in my filter after I cleaned it. I'm betting the filter flow rate was slowed/clogged enough that after the cleaning it boosted the flow rate and that pushed all that crud right out of the return piping.

Good news:
This doesn't seem to be bothering my fish any, so it's not harmful....so far Now that my filter is performing more efficiently, it should suck up a lot of the debris floating in the water and keep it contained to the filter.

Okay-ish news:
My tank looks like it has dandruff. Water changes will take care of the gravel, everything else I'm gonna have to take out and rinse or use an airline to suck up a little at a time which will take FOREVER.

Bad News:
I still don't know what the source of this was. Hopefully it'll be gone for good and this was a one time thing due to the poor filter flow and some sort of build up in the return.

Hoping more people will see this and maybe someone has had a similar experience and can provide more insight. Making a whole lot of assumptions :)
 
Oh it IS the worst when the gunk blows out of the tubes! Usually gets sucked and caught back into the filter, I get that frequently. Likely from the gunk in the tubes.

You could vac it out. And maybe a small power head to keep the debris circulating so it can also get sucked up in the filter.

Yes, I hope someone else has an exact answer for you.

Just make sure to check water parameters in a little bit to make sure all is well.
 
The plot thickens...the gunk thins....

36 hours since the water change/filter cleaning...the "White Stuff" has gone AWOL. It was still all over my tank yesterday and the free floating stuff was mostly getting sucked up by the filter, but there was still a lot of it on the rocks/plants/substrate. Now it's almost entirely gone. I'm definitely not complaining, but I hate not knowing what caused this!

Here's a before and after, and no, I did not vacuum/clean this piece of DW. CRAZY!

https://drive.google.com/open?id=1rbN5RXUs5btKyhhgALmh20rnGi7ywDVd
 
Great news!!!

My guess is rotted food particles :confused: only a guess? Did you do a filter clean out / change around that time?

This makes me think to need to remember to clean the tubes next canister filter change (whether I remember is the issue, lol) It does get really bad in there. Rarely do I remember to do that. The last 2 filter cleans though were very mucky when it went back on!!! brown cloud type mucky :eek: Cleared up fast though.

Keep a keen eye on it in case it happens again. Any food changes before that dandruff shower?
 
Back
Top Bottom