White stuff in water

[soritan]

Okay, so I've had Sori for a while, and he's been in recovery since I got him from the pet store. I noticed, when I bought him, that there was 'white stuff' in his water. It didn't actually look like... *cough* the sort of 'waste' I'm accustomed to seeing accompany a fish.

It seemed like this 'white stuff' became really rampant for a little while, in his water, and then it simply went away after a few water changes. I noticed today that it seems like it's come back.


Here, you can see it the most clearly, especially against the rocks:

You can kinda see it floating in the water, here, and clinging to a few plant roots. I had just added some water to his tank, and the agitation caused it all to kinda fluff up and move about.

And in this one:

You can see a little bit of it inside his jar.


Googling for 'white stuff in tank' churns up fairly useless results, most of them concerning Ick..... I can't figure out what it is, is it simply Betta waste?

 

[red_fish_blue_fish]

I have the same thing, it is killing my plants...if you find out what it is...let me know.

 

[BettaMomma]

Amos had that in his tank when he was sick, and I am pretty sure that he had bacterial infection when this appeared.

My guess is that it's a bacterial growth.

Assuming that it is a small tank, and you do 100% water changes on it, I would recommend the next time you do a 100% water change - soak everything in the tank in a VERY high solution of aquarium salt water before putting it back in the tank. You'll also want to dump probably around 1/2 cup of salt into the tank and swish it around good, and scrub it out with a soft cloth. (All this is done, of course, while the fish is off in a completely different container all on his own lol)

That should take care of it. It stopped the stuff from growing in Amos' tank - but he was only in it for a few more days after I washed it out that way so I'm not positive if, given time, it would have come back.

 

[soritan]

Hmmm, only one of my plants is made out of silk, the rest are live. I wonder if simply rinsing off the live plants would do?

I feel the sudden need to prove there's actually a fish in there. Oo; Sori's rather notoriously camera shy, and always dashes off each time I try and grab a pic of him. It took me weeks to get this:

 

[BettaMomma]

We didn't think you were keeping a tank of pet rocks.
LOL

HE's a very pretty color! Very handsome.

It would be perfectly safe to dip the plants in a salt bath - just not scalding hot water - room temp would be fine!
People do that every day to get rid of snails so they don't hitchhike into tanks on the plants

 

[soritan]

We didn't think you were keeping a tank of pet rocks.
LOL

HE's a very pretty color! Very handsome.

Hah, that's very kind of you to say, BettaMomma. I know he's kind of your usual, "run of the mill" red veiltail. I went to the other fish store, downtown, and they had something like 20 red veiltails, all of which looked just like Sori. I really prefer the shop downtown, the man there is a pure hobbiest, and the shop is actually adjoined with a video rental (odd, ain't it?). His stock is extremely healthy, and well cared for. Unfortunately, he doesn't carry very much in the way of medicines and foods and etc, he only carries very healthy fish. And even more unfortunate, he sells Betta Vases. I got into a few little fights with him about that, and he's rather dismissive on the matter. I will, however, say that the betta in the vase looks very well cared for. It was quite odd to go there, today, and see cups and cups full of little Sori-copies.

I choose Sori over a few lovely little crown tails... I liked his personality. He was curious about just about everything, even though he was obviously fairly sick. I don't know, it was one of those 'things'.

I'll give the total scrub down thing a whirl the next time I do his water change. So much for beneficial bacteria. I guess at least it's just a 2gallon, and doing something like that won't set it *too* far back.

If anyone knows what it is, though, I'd really love to know.