GuppyLog || Comments || Creeping Death!

New to Guppylog?
Immediate Help

Conversions and Calculator
Conversions and Tank volume calculator

Add yourself to our guppylog map
Guppylog Members

* Change as much water as often as you can! *
Inkmaker

Front Page · Everything · News · Ask Guppylog · Diaries

Creeping Death! | 6 comments (6 topical, editorial, 0 hidden)

Re: Creeping Death! (none / 0) (#1)
by maggie1270 on Tue Oct 04, 2005 at 05:44:57 PM PST

It looks to me like it's algae. I've seen that on my tank lid but it's usually the dark green and not in such a huge quantity (no offense). I find that if I do not clean the lid at least once a month it has a tendency of growing down the clear lid.
Maggie

Re: Creeping Death! (none / 0) (#2)
by lomelindi on Tue Oct 04, 2005 at 06:49:27 PM PST

*chuckles* Not offended... I've never considered cleaning the lid, but my lids have always.. aaaalways.. been crystal-clear. Nothing more than a little water backsplash... and that's including the tank I had for years when I was younger. What would suddenly make it bloom like that, do you suppose?

[ Parent ]

What would suddenly make it bloom like that? (none / 0) (#3)
by unclescott on Tue Oct 04, 2005 at 08:31:50 PM PST

An increasing nutrient load. Sufficient light for a bloom.

As aesthetically unsatisfying as that is, it is better than the nutrients (i.e., somewhat processed fish waste) being in the water. Smaller, well-lit containers, with fish which have grown up in such a container, are especially prone to that. I am pulling the member of a ten-gallon aquarium so I can accommodate three Rivulus iridescens, formerly fry, which incredibly have done quite well in an algae coated "battery jar". It is time to dump the sump and give them a much more appropriate (very well covered) home of their own.

I would hesitate to even guess what the pH and TDS is of that swamp. After their new home is set up, tomorrow hopefully, it will take a couple of days of gradually adding water from their new home (that water in turn from my "set up" tank) to get them used to it, safely. Even though they seem to be remarkably tough fish, the chemistry of their current quarters is so gonzo, acclimation to something new will be verrrrrrrry gradual.

For the record, your aquarium is probably in a lot better shape than that 1-gallon battery jar. However, no part of the battery jar is that, um, colorful. :)

Just as fungus on a tank bottom is one of nature's ways of cleaning up uneaten food, exotic algae blooms are a similar clean-up effort. And it does you the service of concentrating those nutrients in a usually safer form.

The bubbles in that mass indicate that some serious photosynthesis is going on. The dark greenish stuff looks a little like that notorious blue-green slime. If that is what the stuff is, it is actually closer to bacteria than algae. You can Google a lot of hits for Cyanobacteria. Guppylog will also provide a few, i.e.
http://www.guppylog.com/story/2004/10/12/72231/501

While there are treatments for it, I would urge you to remove it with a siphon or even (yech) manually if necessarily. Using an antibiotic (Eurethromyacin) around the other aquarium organisms you may later need to medicate against, encourages the development of antibiotic resistant bacteria, et al. Also, if that stuff dies, a lot of material and toxins are dumped back into the water!

If you don't, it indeed can become the creeping death, though more to plants than fish.

All the best!
uncle scott

[ Parent ]

Re: What would suddenly make it bloom like that? (none / 0) (#5)
by lomelindi on Wed Oct 05, 2005 at 05:32:22 AM PST

Also, it's rather remarkable to me, what a fry can get used to. Up until yesterday, I had those fry in that one tiny little water-quality-fluctuating, algea all down one side tank, and they never ailed a thing for it. Got their colors a whole lot sooner than the two ten-gallon sickly babies, too. It's probably only certain species that are so resilient as babies. There's something interesting in the thought, though. Something that makes me want to experiment.. ehe.

[ Parent ]

Re: What would suddenly make it bloom like that? (none / 0) (#4)
by lomelindi on Wed Oct 05, 2005 at 05:26:49 AM PST

Oh, I took it outside and "removed" it right after I took the picture. Those little fish better appreciate me. Yech.

Hm... the light exposure hasn't increased appreciably, and I seriously doubt that the fishy waste was any more than it usually is, since up until very recently there weren't many fish in there.. so I'd say I was over feeding them. Which I probably was... all I had in there were two tiny fry and a little pleco. Now, I've got all four of my fry in there, and a betta.. so the food will get eaten, and it shouldn't happen again. I hope.

This green stuff wasn't actually in the water... since you said I should remove it with a "siphon," I get the feeling you thought it was. Inside the tank itself, there really isn't much algea at all... a little bit of the brown stuff on a plastic plant, and a few dots of green that aren't plentiful or growing enough to mess with.

(Unrelated but creepy note, I've got a mass of java moss in my tank right now that used to be anchored under a decoration, until my pleco took personal offense and repeatedly uprooted it.. it was floating in a corner last night, and this morning it has extended one creepy little appendage and latched on to my air tubing. The flora of my tank has a mind of its own!)

[ Parent ]

"The flora of my tank has a mind (none / 0) (#6)
by unclescott on Thu Oct 06, 2005 at 10:21:06 AM PST

of its own!"

Duh-duh-duh-duh... watch out for sharks swimming nearby. ;)

Interesting about that cruddy fry tank. I do think that that algae fixes a certain amount of waste material. Natural waters may be even prettier than an aquarium. Then again, they may not be.

Some of the prettiest new aquariums may also be among the most toxic. A lot of poisons can be dissolved in clear water.

I was struck by the observation several years ago, that a little green algae, yes even that hair algae, could be a sign of a healthy aquarium. What we find attractive, isn't always best for our fish.

Just think of that algae on your tank top as a very basic form of trickle filter. ;)

All the best!
unc

[ Parent ]

Creeping Death! | 6 comments (6 topical, 0 editorial, 0 hidden)

Display: Sort:

Menu

· create account

· F.A.Q. For Newbies!

· Immediate Help For Newbies!

· search

· Scoop Info

· Our Tanks

Login

Make a new account

Username:

Password:

create account | faq | search