A blanket of white fuzz....

[julia-claire]

Hello,

I've had a tank up and running for a two and a half weeks now. I have 3 dwarf puffers and two otos in a 10 gallon tank.

A few days ago, I attempted to vaccuum my gravel, however I'm pretty sure I just stirred up more crap than actually cleaning anything--I proceeded with my water change, including my water conditioners, bacterial starters, etc...

Ever since that time, there has been a blanket of white fuzz pretty much covering the entire tank.

The fish don't seem to be bothered by it. Infact, the puffers seem to like to hunt it lol. It's not solid on anything that is for sure--if I stir the water at all, it all billows up and clouds up my tank.

I've spoken to three lfs and I have gotten three varying opinions. They pretty much all seem to agree that it's some sort of bacterial problem--also that it shouldn't harm my fish.

Some said it could be due to over-feeding--which is possible because my puffers wouldn't eat anything the first few days I had them...The other opinion is that I didn't give enough time for my good bacterias to do their thing...

What do you think? Any opinions on what it is or how I can get rid of it? I'm not sure if my otos are eating it but right now they are fat as hell (I haven't had to feed them for a few days), so I guess it's possible...

Any opinions would be great!

 

[RogerMcAllen]

Hmm, I have no idea what that couldbe. On a side note, there seems to be a problem with people posting three pictures at once. Perhaps one of the techies here could look into that.

 

[Fruitbat]

The only time I've ever seen anything like that it turned out to be a fungus. There are plenty of aquatic, free-living fungi that will feed on excess decomposing material in your tank. Try vacuuming the bottom of the tank and make sure you don't overfeed!