white slimey stuff

[teknikz]

ive jusyt gone to do a water chnge in my big tank n there was white slime round my thermometer.....what is it???

Tek

 

[dolphin]

Hi Teknikz

Probably bacteria and scum.

 

[skiltrip]

GOOD bacteria or BAD bacteria?

And what exactly is scum?

- kip

 

[snotirl]

its scum it just come after a while when water keeps rubbing of the same place and it builds up!

 

[Squimps]

I had a similar experience when I shut off my Magnum 350 while doing a water change on a newly established tank. The backflow from my filter causes a bunch of this white slimey stuff to shoot back into my tank. I looked at my filter hoses and could see that they were covered in this stuff. The owner of a local shop that I fequent told me that this was indeed bacteria buildup(good bacteria, by the way ), and it had established itself in the tubing because it liked the continuous water flow.

Without knowing what it was at the time, I chose to clean out my filter tubes thoroughly. The very next day I had a significant bacteria bloom. This definitely gives credit to her explanation on it having been bacteria since destroying the colony living in the tube would have prompted the bloom I witnessed. Although it is unsightly, it is harmless to your fish. Feel free to clean off the stuff on the glass, ornaments, and rocks but I would leave anything inside the filter alone until you are certain that you have a firmly entrenched bacteria colony within your entire tank.

Just a side note - I never turn off my filters when doing water changes any more. Unless the water level drops below the intake tube depth, it is entirely unnecessary.

 

[Jamnog]

if im right it builds up on the impeller its due to the water flow being intence or the porperties of the water in that aria. its nothing too seriouse so long as it doesnt inade the tank its prolly a mix of both good and bad but they both exist allmost everywhere... i think

 

[kevin007]

well i'm just glad it's good bactiria.

 

[Feline]

When I was doing some modification to the air curtain, I found those stuff too! And later that day those stuff's half gone, I suspect the fishies ate them......

 

[teknikz]

i thought it was eggs

how thick am i!!!!!!!

 

[Minni3]

How sure are you guys about the slime being from good bacteria? Because I always thought good bacteria took a while to form...I bleached my glass heater which had that stuff and a week later...It's there again.

Then my fish got fin rot, and then a huge bacterial infection and died...so i cleaned the tank all over again and now im cycling..and its been a week of cycling the white slimey stuff is back. My heater is also far from my filter (my filter is at one side of the tank and the heater at the other end) so what could it be?

I convinced myself the mysterious slime was the reason why my betta died...

My original post about this is here:

http/www.fishforums.net/content/Tropical...e-Slimey-Stuff/