Help! Fungus or bacteria growth harmful?

[dimndsafire24]

Hello, I set up a 10 gallon tank with two baby spotted puffer fish and a pleco about a week and a half ago. I put 3 ghost shrimp in the tank because on one site it said that the puffers would eat them. I've been giving the puffers a block of frozen brine shrimp every other day. (yes i know i'm probably over feeding them... it will stop). I have a new filter. I noticed the other day that the water looked cloudy and then I woke up yesterday and there was a slimey bubbly growth attached to my filter. It's a whitish color and looks kind of like intestines? it's about an inch long and wide. I went to work today and came back home to find another growth on the rocks in the bottom of tank. This one almost looks like mushrooms but it still has the slimey off white/cream color. I dont want to touch them because i'm afraid that it will cause more harm but i dont want my fish to get sick either. any suggestions?

 

[An t-iasg]

Welcome to Aquarium Advice!

You set your tank up a week and a half ago - did you cycle this tank before you added the fish? Cycling a tank means growing colonies of the beneficial bacteria needed to break down the fishes' waste products (ammonia). Cycling - fishless cycling - involves the process of growing the bacteria, which means adding a food source for the bacteria (pure ammonia or a rotting shrimp), and either waiting until the bacteria appear on their own, or you can use some media from an established tank to add bacteria. When ammonia is 0 ppm, nitrites are 0 ppm, and nitrates are around 10-20 ppm, your tank is cycled. Here's an article from our site to get you started in learing about the cycle process: http://www.aquariumadvice.com/articles/articles/24/1/Nitrogen-Cycle-/Page1.html

Do you have test kits and can you post ammonia, nitrite, and nitrate results? Liquid test kits are more reliable than the test strips.

With a pleco, you should see ammonia readings from your test kit if the tank hasn't cycled. Plecos are big waste producers. If your tank isn't cycled, you'll have to do water changes anytime your ammonia reaches .25 ppm or more. You may be doing water changes every day until the good bacteria can catch up with the bioload of the fish that you have.

The cloudiness of the water could be a bacterial bloom - common in new tanks. The beneficial bacteria is probably not established yet in your tank and as the bacteria become established, the water will clear as the baciteria do their job of removing the ammonia and nitrites.

Do you know what kind of pleco you have? Most plecos will outgrow a 10 gallon tank. The common pleco can get pretty big - about 12 inches long.

The slimy growths could be due to overfeeding. The excess food will decay and that can raise the ammonia level in the tank. You could remove the slime with a clean turkey baster or gravel vac. How often do you do water changes? Usually 20-25% of the total tank volume once a week is sufficient. However, your tank is probably still cycling unless you did a fishless cycle prior to adding the fish. The results of the ammonia, nitrite, and nitrate tests will tell us at what point your tank is in the cycle. If it's cycling now, you'll need to do water changes every day of up to 50%, as long as the ammonia or nitrite readings are greater than .25 ppm. If the readings are less than .25 ppm but greater than 0, you'll still need to do changes but you could do a change of about 30%.

 

[Zagz]

I have puffers as well and yes you are overfeeding them. What is most likely happening is that the leftover food is causing your ammonia to spike to high. Also frozen food will fungus quickly when uneaten.

Do a large water change and post your parameters as Antiasg suggested. Test before the water change to be accurate. If you didn't cycle the tank first, this will only make matters worse.

On a different note, try feeding them frozen bloodworms, they are more nutrious than brine shrimp. I feed my dwarf puffers 2 frozen bloodworms each per day.