White fuzz/mould on filter intakes question

[guppy78]

Hi, last week i woke up to find all the filter intakes had white fuzz pouring out of them (never saw this before in the year or so which ive kept fish)
I removed the filter then and there and cleaned it all (the filter sponge itself had a coating of snot clear like substance all over it)
the next day the same thing happened, covered in fuzz etc.
I figured the filter had broken somehow and put a brand new (same model) filter in its place which i bought as an emergancy.

2 days later the new filter looked exactly the same concerning the white fuzz.
also 3 of my small fish died inbetween this time frame, never lost a fish in 6 or 7 months untill now so im pretty gutted tbh.

changes ive made to my tank are...just before xmas i removed all live plants from the tank and left 10 mossballs in there and put 2 polyresin rock formation ornaments in, other than that no other changes have been made to the tank so im not sure if thats what could be causing this sudden fuzz.

its a 110 litre tank and my water parameters are the same as they've always been besides the No2 has risen to 0.5 and No3 is 20, i always do a 50% water change every 4 days.

if anyone knows what could be causing this, that would be great, thanks

 

[FallenPepper]

Sounds like moldy food tbh. Might want to increase the amount you gravel vac and cut down on feeding to reduce the chance of food molding. Right now when you have a chance too I'd do a teardown of your tank clean everything and put it back just to make sure there isn't any food hiding in corners. (My bichirs love hiding food) A water change would help as well in this situation after you check for hiding food.

 

[Metalhead88]

It could very well be moldy food. Decaying food can produce excess ammonia and lead to fish death. Perhaps this is what happened.

Test for ammonia asap.

Post some pictures and test results.

 

[guppy78]

cheers guys, today is full maintenance day which im about to start, then ill do some tests, im hoping its just moldy food tbh, i started to convince mysef that my polyresin formations aint as fish safe as they were described to be when i bought them : /

 

[FallenPepper]

Good luck! Would love to see the tank after too. A clean tank is the best time to show it off!

 

[guppy78]

Good luck! Would love to see the tank after too. A clean tank is the best time to show it off!

There you go , im gonna go back to full planted I think in the summer, I preferred the more natural look, just got a little fed up of how dark it made the tank and ofcourse keeping on top of all the pruning as it was like an underwater jungle in there haha

 

[FallenPepper]

Lookin good!