White stuff??

[Mr F.ishy]

hello all,

ive just had a big problem with ich, had 11 fish only 3 survived , anyway, ive noticed white stuff on the top of the water, i dont know how to explain it, the water isnt cloudy its just a layer of white, my question is, could this be dangerous?, should i test the water?, maybe even a water change ( not sure about water change the fish seem alittle shocked from the ich incident ) . Any ideas or suggestions will be great thanks.

fish left:
-----------------------------
tiger barb (1)
red tail shark fish (1)
catfish (1)
10gal. tank

 

[pondfreak4365]

hi Mr. Fishy,
Absolutely test the water first. Do you have proper filtration and aeration in the tank? Is the white stuff a film or more like particles?

 

[Mr F.ishy]

ive just been to the pet shop and got testers,

ph: 7 - 7.4
nitrate : over 110
ammonia : 0

im now going to do a 25% water change, the white stuff is more of a film, i did something wrong when cleaning the filters, i soaked them in hot water probably making the water harder , ive got some cleaning up to do i guess

the filteration system is fine it came with the fishtank, (juwel rekord 60) thats fine, its all new stuff, only had the tank 3 months

 

[Alien Anna]

It's a mistake to clean filters in hot water - you should just gently rinse them in used tank water, so as not to kill off the beneficial bacteria.

Juwel filters aren't great at removing precipitate from the water, but do make sure your powerhead is clean because they work better when they're not blocked

I'm suspecting the ich and fish deaths were caused by the tank either not being cycled in the first place, or going through a mini-cycle when you over-diligently cleaned out the filters. Have a read of the article in my sig for the background to what I'm talking about.

 

[Ob1]

I placed a new heater in my tank and i had a layer of oil form on the surface

I layed some paper kichen towels on the surface for a very short time, it removed just the top oil layer

it might help remove the white bits?

 

[Mr F.ishy]

i did another water change today and the white oil layer has nearly gone, i was told the oil was probably from the fish that died of ich, if they died in the night they will release oil into the water and if the fish arent removed quick enough, but i seem to have it under control now well i hope so anyway . When i restock my tank in a few weeks i was thinking about getting a few tiger barbs, are they easy to breed?