What is this crud in my tank?

[freeflow246]

Once it became colder and I had to put heaters in my tanks, this stuff began appearing. Brushing the decor with a toothbrush at every water change seems to cut down on it, and it doesn't seem to affect the fish, but Lord is it nasty. I've made a few topics about this before, but now I have pics!
It almost looks like little pieces of toilet paper floating around. Some pieces get especially long and stringy.

[Kytkattin]

My roommates nasty fish tanks have that except the chunks are way bigger. My guess is that it is a protein of some sort. How big are your tanks and how often are you doing water changes?
I used to get that stuff too, but I don't have any in my filtered tank. Oddly, I don't have it in my 2 gallon that I used to get it in. Maybe it is the live plants that I have that absorb it?

[freeflow246]

2.5 gal and 1 gal. I do one 50% change and one 100% change a week on the 2.5, and I do a water change every other day on the 1 gal because the fish there has almost knocked out some fin rot.
I also have a moss ball in the 2.5 gal, where it's worse.

[Kytkattin]

To clarify, my 2 gallon is ridiculously over-planted. I have 6 different species of plants, so they pretty much absorb everything. Once they really start growing there will be more plants than water. lol.

I am pretty sure it is just a protein that somehow is created. I am not sure why it happens, and I am pretty sure it doesn't hurt the fish. It just stinks to look at.

[Pitluvs]

I have no idea, but I get this in my filtered 1.5g tanks. They have 50% and 100% weekly changes too. Doesn't bother the fish so I don't mind.

[freeflow246]

I'll just try to scrub the decor really good whenever I change the water then. It doesn't worry me, it just makes the water look kinda gross at a glance. I've had a few people comment on it actually and I had to explain how it's not harmful, so far unavoidable, etc.

[Sweeda88]

I get that stuff a lot in my unfiltered tanks. It's probably part of the protein film along with dust. That's all I can figure.

[Tikibirds]

I got it in my 20 gallon. No idea what it is, no live plants in that tank and that gets water changes ever 2 or so days

[SnowySurface]

It's algae. I get three types of algae at the moment because my lighting sucks and I don't have a timer. I get Hair Algae by my filter and Hard "green dot" algae on the wall of my tank right under my light. I just can't win. T_T

The floaty algae you see is brown algae. it only happens in tanks that aren't fully established. I saw it alot when I was cycling my tank towards the end of the ammonia peak to nitrITE step. Water changes clean it up. I also noticed a stlight decrease in my brown algae when I started floating IAL in my water. But I don't know if that's just a coincedence.

I would get a timer and better lighting, but I don't have the money yet. It isn't harmful to my fish so I just remove it about once a week. If the floaty pieces get really big on me, then I suck them out of the tank with a turkey baster. It figures that the moment you make a tank healthy for fish you make it healthy for every type of algae on the plant. XD

Here's the link for a quick overveiw. I'm still looking for a really good site about algae. If you look at my other post complaining about algae you may see different links from this one.

[freeflow246]

I would think that it's algae, but it didn't start appearing in Jalen's tank until a few weeks ago, and I've had him since July. It also doesn't seem to be rooted to things, it just floats around and settles.