IM NOT SURE WHAT THIS IS

[SweetObsession]

I have 2 firemouth cichlids. I haven't been able to sex them yet. Anyways, last week when I did a water change, I noticed this algae clump. I dumped it with the water. I noticed it re-appear again yesterday. Now I don't know if these are eggs or algae. Can someone explain this? I'm new to cichlids, I had live breeders for forever before this.

 

[Metalhead88]

Looks like some sort of algea. Scrape it and vacume it up.

It's not eggs.

 

[Colin_T]

It looks like dead fish covered in fungus. Is there anything else in the tank besides the firemouths?

If you don't have nay other fish in the tank, it is either food or poop that is covered in algae, most likely food if you feed pellets.

Make sure you use a gravel cleaner when doing water changes and do a 75% water change and gravel clean the substrate every week.

Cichlids aren't hard to keep and are really interesting to watch when they have babies.

 

[SweetObsession]

Ok, thank you guys. No, there are no other fish in there. I do use a gravel cleaner, but usually only do 35-50 percent water change a week, so that makes sense why it could be algae covered food. I will increase to 75% change/wk. Thanks again!