Erm...wth?

[Jupiter]

Well, I was worried about my CT passing whatever he has onto the girls, so I put him in the other tank even though it's a little chillier.

Well, he's still not doing well. He went to the bottom, and has heavy gill movements. Though he did seem a little happy to be in a bigger place and checked out one of the plants.

Anyway, main point is that I checked all my girls to see if they have any symptoms or anything.

I noticed something on the walls of the tank.

I don't really know how to describe it, it's like very small thin white-ish threads all over the walls of the tank. I think I didn't notice it because they're very fine and tiny, and with my contacts on I have trouble seeing things like that up close.

Er...any idea what it is? Harmful? Benign? If I had noticed it earlier, I would have taken an algae scraper to it. Tomorrow I'm planning on doing a huge WC anyway (last one was 50% on Wednesday) just in case.

[Jupiter]

Oh, whoops. Excuse my language.

[dramaqueen]

You're excused!

[Rain Drop]

Hmm...that white stringy stuff you described is the same kind of stuff that grows on my heater if I leave a WC for too long. I think it's some sort of algae so I just always clean it off as soon as I notice it.

[ChristinaRoss]

ive read online several responses to this, here they are:1. I can only guess it's a type of filamentous algae , which tends to grow into fine threadlike colonies, but those usually are a very light green all the way to dark green, and usually would come with high nutrient levels in the water. Under lower light conditions , they'd most likely have less chlorophyll , so they could appear almost white. In generally they're totally harmless in an aquarium, though sort of unsightly. turn the light on an hour less everyday. 2.overfeeding
3. gravel needs to be cleaned better with a gravel vacuum or syphon
4. its fungus, clean the tank thoroughly if it comes back treat with a fungus killer

hope this helps

[ChristinaRoss]

could also be from adding daphnia or other live foods, i dont feed my boys live food, it seems to cause illnesses alot in my opinion from everything ive read.

[Jupiter]

That's a helpful list!

It might be algae, except that my tank has no hood, so it gets no light. My room itself is quite dim because it's in the basement. So I guess that would explain why it's white...if algae can grow in those conditions.

I have very fine gravel, pretty much sand. I run a siphon a little overhead so it doesn't suck it up, I don't use a gravel vacuum. Correct me if this is the wrong way of doing it.

Fungus is plausible, since my CT did have a small speck of fungus when i first got him. But with clean water & salt it went away.

I don't feed my girls live food. Too squeamish. So I think that one's out of the question. :P

So it's either algae or fungus most likely...thanks for the help. :)

[dramaqueen]

Live food..eeeuuuwww!!!