White Mold

cjc75

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Greetings all.

I just recently redid an old 29Gal Tank of mine; after a couple Paku's that I had in it died... roomy neglected them while I took vacation :angry: ... but oh well; it left me a spare tank that I can use for something else.

So; I just cleaned it out a month ago; re arranged some things in it... rocks, plants, etc... using all artificial stuff. Filled it up and let the filtration run over night; water looked great and crystal clear, so then I went out and got a bunch of various small Tetra's; Danio's, couple small Bala Sharks... an small Angel... pretty much just going for an all out fresh water tropical reef look... and stocked the tank back up.

Anyway... its been about a month now and I have since started to develope an ungly "white mold" growing all over the bottom. Now I am pretty sure its just because of "over feeding"; flakes fall down and get left at the bottom and get all moldy. I'v cut back on the amount of food that I give them; and recently did a water change with my gravel vacuum; trying to suck all that ugly mold out.

But alas... that stuff likes to cling to that gravel; as well as to the plants. It's a pain in the you know what to clean off the artificial plants; I can pull them out of the tank and wash them over and over and still not get it all off... and the way it clings to those little gravel rocks, very annoying! I get the mold sucked up into the vacuum but then on occasison it pulls a piece of gravel up with it; and then I end up with a busted garbage disposal in my sink. Granted; I could in theory go out and buy a strainer to drain the vacuum into it, over the sink drain.

This mold looks horrible and I know it can't be all that healthy for the fish in the long run; I temporarily held a new Pleco in that tank (I have 2 tanks) for an hour the other night; and when I came to net him out and move him to the other tank... his had his spiney fins all snagged up with this mold.. obviously not a good thing. For the record he's fine now.

So is there an easier way to get this mold under control? Any sort of chemicals that I can buy that will kill it off and get rid of it?
 
It sounds like it is just over feeding. Make sure you watch how much your fish really eat and then you'll know how much to feed them.
 
It sounds like it is just over feeding. Make sure you watch how much your fish really eat and then you'll know how much to feed them.

Thats pretty much what I thought, never hurts to ask though.

Guess I should go find some sort of a bottom scavenger then; that can take care of any small amounts that might get left on the bottom... what sort should I look for that'll eat left over flakes? Someone at one of my LFS suggested I look for a small fresh water shrimp; or some sort of a small loach... I don't want anything that'll get too much larger then an inch in size though, maybe inch and half at most... not do I want anything that might be hostile towards any of my smaller fish in this particular tank. I have a lot of small Tetra's in there for example.
 

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