Weird "fibers" in dechlorinated water bucket?

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bloodlucky

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Basically I have a 2.5 gallon bucket that I always keep filled up with fresh dechlorinated water for when I do water changes, but lately I've been noticing after a few days I would look in the bucket and there would be hundreds of these stringy fiber looking things in the bucket.

I assumed it was dust at first, but then again there is no way that much dust could build up in that bucket in such a short period of time.

What could it be? So like after every 3 days I have to dump out the bucket and refill it and it's a complete ways of dechlorinator...
 
bud29 said:
could you get a picture? That does seem odd.

Well I just dumped out the water right before I asked this question, but since the fibers are hard to see it would probably be impossible for the camera to pick up
 
OK.......has anything else been in the bucket before, that you know of? I have buckets solely for water changes and I have never gotten that.......
 
bud29 said:
OK.......has anything else been in the bucket before, that you know of? I have buckets solely for water changes and I have never gotten that.......

Nothing at all... And this recently started happening too. This never happened with our 72 gallon, this never happened with my 10 gallon until very recently
 
Fill the bucket with some bleach and water and let it sit a few hours. Then rinse well and let it sit in the sun. If after that is done and it happens again (whatever it is causing it) then I would suspect its something from the tank water (what I have no clue as I've never seen this in all the 30+ years I've been in the hobby). Bleach will kill anything so that would be the route I'd go were it me.
 
Fill the bucket with some bleach and water and let it sit a few hours. Then rinse well and let it sit in the sun. If after that is done and it happens again (whatever it is causing it) then I would suspect its something from the tank water (what I have no clue as I've never seen this in all the 30+ years I've been in the hobby). Bleach will kill anything so that would be the route I'd go were it me.

That is a good idea. Just rinse the heck out of it after you dump the bleach solution out.
 
Do you have a cat or dog? My cat'd fur would always end up getting in my buckets somehow and it looked like little fibers in the water.
 
If your worried about bleach residue you can always rinse the bleach then refill the bucket with water and usea declorinator, then let it sit a few more hours. And be sure to use plain bleach, not one of those scented or fancy ones they have nowadays.

I too have both cats and dogs and have had to deal with hairs in water/buckets. They do look like fibers.
 
Maybe let it sit out in the sun for a day or two.......

Unfortunately I live in a busy apartment in New York City. Some gangster would probably take the bucket in less than 5 minutes
 
I have NO PETS BESIDES FISH

So yeah now I really want to find out what it is
 
Bobjoefredsky said:
Is there any alternative to bleach?

I don't really like the idea of bleach :/ I'm real picky about goes in or around my tank... I'm always afraid of trace amounts being left behind... With that said you could try vinegar, that's what I use to clean my supplies.
 
AndrewsPistol said:
I don't really like the idea of bleach :/ I'm real picky about goes in or around my tank... I'm always afraid of trace amounts being left behind... With that said you could try vinegar, that's what I use to clean my supplies.

Yeh same here. I am just thinking about what the fibers could be
 
Bleach is chlorine, so when using bleach all it takes is dechlor to neutralize it. That is why you can recharge Purgen in bleach and then soak it in dechlor to neutralize it, so it can then be reused in the aquarium.
 
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