Hi men. I’m completely new to stay plants and manner out of my detail. I very these days installation a Fluval Spec V for my Beta. The plant life which might be within the tank are frogbit, a few moss balls and a whole bunch of Anubias glued to driftwood. There has been an alarming quantity of biofilm at the huge piece of driftwood on account that the second one day. There is none on the opposite one. I should preserve the drift way down because of the beta. Also I must admit that the anubias on the trouble wooden came from a person else’s tank and had black beard algae. I dealt with it with a bleach dip and it appeared adequate but now I’m now not so sure. Any advice that anybody should supply me might be excellent appreciated. Thanks a lot!

 

Hi! It is indeed biofilm.

All new pieces of driftwood you put in an aquarium will grow a layer of biofilm on them in their first few weeks. That biofilm is your tank bacteria colonizing to eat the nutrients from the fresh new food source you put in. Eventually, they'll eat everything and the film will disperse, but for now it's completely harmless and just looks kind of weird.

 

Thanks for the reply. I thought it was too, I just wanted to double check. Let it run its course I shall.

 

If you want it to dis faster you can get a fresh toothbrush and brush it off. It may return a few more times but it will go much faster.

 

I’ll do that when I attach plants to the wood. I’m going to do a fishless cycle first, then plant using only tissue culture plants. It’s all I trust after my last tank got planaria, then I’ll add the fish.

I’ve been told that tissue culture plants do better in a cycled tank, rather than when you’re trying to cycle, anyone put tissue culture plants in an uncycled tank and they’ve survived?

I’m going to be using low tech easy plants like anubias, crypts, Java fern and maybe Bucephalandra or moss. Possibly Bacopa Caroliniana, I’m completely uninterested in Porthos species

 

Yeah, I had this happen to me too. Worst part is I added tannins and they dyed the biofilm dark, so it all turned brown and yucky overnight You can scrub it off like I did, or, as I've found out, snails will eat it too.

 

My driftwood is still leaching tannins, but that's okay, it'll stop eventually.