It's Taking Over My Whole Tank! And It Stinks!

[roguekiller23231]

the whole tank is being taken over by some kind of slime, it's a fresh water tank and at around 26C.

the slime is sort of growing over all the plastic plants and is a sort of olive green to brown. when i clean out the slime and pour it out i can see parts of it are almost pink or red.

then the worst part, when i clean the gravel (with a siphon) by pushing it under the gravel, this awful stench fills the air like rotten eggs/sulphur. the gravel on top is white and in light colours (as it should be) but underneath it's black, not all black but some of the stones (about 50%) are covered in black, when i look closely it's like a fungus or something covering each pebble.

i'm cleaning the tank once a week, doing a partial change of water (10%) and removing as much dirt from the gravel during this change as possible, but the slime is so thick it's difficult.

anyone know what could be the cause?

Additional info:

120L tank
temps 26c (78.8f)
Tank contents, Guppies, no live plants
Feeding, 3 times a day, flakes, excess removed.
Water changes: 10% once a week.
the tank was cycled, it's an old setup, filter and oxygen pump working.

Edit_

to give you some idea, this is a post i made before, the slime, taken care of the worms.
http/www.fishforums.net/index.php?/topic/382121-slime-and-worms-what-are-they-and-how-did-it-get-there-with-closeup-video/page__p__3205539#entry3205539

 

[coldcazzie]

Can you take a picture and post it up?

 

[roguekiller23231]

Can you take a picture and post it up?

i cant, i just cleaned out the whole thing, if i haven't got a solution in 2-3 days (which is the time it usually takes to start showing up and taking over again) i'll take some pictures then and put them up.

 

[RZayneC]

the tank was cycled, it's an old setup, filter and oxygen pump working.

What do you mean by this?

IS it a new set up using old equipment that has been left to dry out for more than a week?

The slim you talk of is part of a fish in cycle. Mine had this the first 2 weeks and then disappeared.

 

[roguekiller23231]

the tank was cycled, it's an old setup, filter and oxygen pump working.

What do you mean by this?

IS it a new set up using old equipment that has been left to dry out for more than a week?

The slim you talk of is part of a fish in cycle. Mine had this the first 2 weeks and then disappeared.

i mean that i cycled the tank first (about 2 years ago) and has been running ever since, i use the air pump to oxygenate the water all the time and it has a working filter.

 

[fluttermoth]

At a guess I'd say it was a combination of overfeeding and not enough maintainence.

Try feeding only once per day and upping your water changes (doing them all with your gravel cleaner) to 40 or 50% a week and it should improve, although it might be a good idea to do a 50% every day for two or three days to clear the worst of it out.

Something is rotting and turning anaerobic in your gravel; that's what the black/bad smelling stuff is and as you have no live plants that could be producing it, my bet is that it's undigested food.

If you feed fish too much, they will eat it, but they'll also poop it out without digesting it.

 

[StandbySetting]

Manual removal, 3-4 day black out with no feeding and then do a large water change and reduce your lighting and improve circulation/ammonia problems.

 

[Shane Ward]

If you have not done so already, looks like you need to compleatly nuke your tank and everything in it. eg, if all else fails try this.

remove your live fish from the tank into a bowl of tank water with the water heater.

Empty the wanter from the old tank completely.

Stones, and hard objects need to be compeleatly scrubbed and nuked in a microwave for 29 seconds, this should boil any bacteria causing the slime or inballence.

Throw away the gravel at the bottom of the tank and get a new bag, 80% of your problem is that!

Completely scrub the tank until it shines under the light, use very hot water. plastic plants should be scrubbed and placed in the microwave for about 5 to ten seconds, to get hot, but not hot to melt them.

Live plants are a chance, I would say throw them a way and get new ones, but I think a good clean should be okay.

the filter will need scrubbing as well, disassemble and clean out the filter sponges completely, boil in hot water then microwave for ten seconds, same with the plastic case but not the electrical unit. if you are using a bubble diffuser, I recommend you get a new one for the pipe as bacteria could live in the element.

If its all been done, you can then assemble everything, place the new gravel into the tank and fill with fresh warm water.

the problem with this procedure is that you will have no bacteria to control the water, so you will have to keep an eye on the different water toxins and preform water changes until the tank is filtering itself normally.

Now placing the fish back into the tank is tricky. you can't pour the water into the clean tank, this might re-introduce the bactira that caused your problem in the first place. I guess that since you have guppy fish, just net them out and place them into the new tank, make sure the water temp is the same, inside the bowl and the main tank.

Again, do this as a last resort, it seemed to resolve a lot of my problems before, but the harder you clean it, the more sucess you will have.

Good luck.

 

[StandbySetting]

There's no way of ensuring the bacteria wont create a problem again, they can move int he air as spores, it's totally unnecessary, there is a cause and that is light and poor water circulation.

 

[Louiseness]

the filter will need scrubbing as well, disassemble and clean out the filter sponges completely, boil in hot water then microwave for ten seconds,

PLEASE don't do this. If the gravel is really gross and dirty I don't see the problem with taking that out and giving it a good clean to get rid of all the black gunk, same with giving the plants a wipe etc. But boiling the filter will just mean you have to re-cycle your tank which is going to cause a whole host of new problems to deal with as well as a dirty tank.