Lifeisgood

Hi James! It has been too long since I have been able to look in and see what was going on with Hugo. I am glad you are seeing some improvement so far. I have been looking at my Rilian and he seems to be suffering from some fun rot and other health issues too. I also gave him a smaller tank and increased tanins. I am wondering about what green water might do. So I am going to try to propagate that in a window and see if he would benefit from that. 🤷‍♀️

I have a lid on my tanks with rainbows but I have heard that we have to be watchful during water changes and tank maintenance. The fish can be spooked into jumping at those times especially. Some people with lidless tanks keep water levels lower to prevent fish from jumping out.

Adding more surface agitation helped me remove it from a 125. I started out scooping it out to feed fancy goldfish in another tank but couldn’t keep ahead of it. The fish in the tank love the current (dwarf rainbows, Hillstream loaches and Panda Garras and Rosy Barbs) so when I added the power head for them I got an added bonus of eliminating the duck weed!😊

I was thinking the same thing about a batch of guppy fry. It turned out that it can take a long time-three or four months for them to mature and color up sometimes. Maybe depending on temps and frequency and types of foods? I would like to follow this to see what some more experienced guppy breeders say to this too.

It looks like your Hillstream loach likes it!😊. I have a bunch of juvenile ones growing out right now. Love them!

If it is BBA you can test it by taking a rock out and wipe it with hydrogen peroxide. Then if it is BBA it will turn red and die. There is a way to treat the rest of the tank but I have not done it—but others can tell you the best way to do it.

Can’t tell from the picture if it is exactly the same kind of thing I had going on in my tank or not. But it turned out to be that I had a gypsum rock in my tank that was melting. I thought it was some kind of fungus but it wasn’t. Ended up vacuuming out the affected substrate and the remains of the gypsum rock. Does the water have a sulfur odor to it? Are your white rocks soft enough to scratch into their surface with your fingernail?

I have had cedar driftwood in a few of my tanks for a number of years. I found it on the shore of a remote trout stream and it was well weathered. I put it out in the sun to dry the outsides of it, brushed off any debris and then submerged it in my tank. Have had good success with rainbow fish, Hillstream loaches which have been breeding regularly, Gouramis, and Rosy barbs. And fancy goldfish in a different tank.

Thank you for your interest in helping me with the white growth. The problem turned out to be caused by a gypsum rock in my tank. It can dissolve in water, it has sulfur in it and can be scratched with your fingernail. And apparently will crystalize in a soft form on substrate that kills plants, stinks like sulfur and looks like a fungus. Now we know!😊 Thank you for your interest in trying to help me figure out how to deal with the weird growth I was struggling with in my aquarium. It turns out it was caused by a gypsum rock that was melting in my tank. Who would have thunk? 😅

After a discussion about rocks with some folks in the General topic section—we came to the conclusion that the white rock was gypsum. It is soft enough to scratch with a fingernail, it contains sulfur and can dissolve in water. So we can add gypsum to the list of rocks to not put in our aquariums and we now know what it will do. We also now know that we should ask about a person’s rocks when they are struggling with a “white fungus” growth on their substrate that smells like sulfur. I love being part of this community! I learn so much! 😊 Thanks for your part.

I thank you for suggesting the “scratch test”. I can scratch it! Mystery solved!! So we can add gypsum to the list of rocks not to add to our aquariums—and now we know what it will do and can ask a person about their rocks if they are struggling with a white “fungus” growth on their substrate!🤯😊

I think this makes perfect sense! We have a gypsum mine nearby and samples from it can appear in unsuspecting places.. I got this rock out of one of the many boxes in our garage—our family likes to collect rocks from everywhere we go. Something about my water made quick work of dissolving that gypsum for sure! Thanks to everyone for helping me figure this out! 😁 I love being part of this community!

And obviously your cat agrees with you—but probably for different reasons!😂

Yes, I still have the shards that are in my hand in the picture. Do you have suggestions as to how to test it?

I wasn’t aware that the rock was melting and thought I was dealing with a white fungus issue. As the white growth spread the smell of sulfur increased. I would siphon it out the smell went away. The white growth kept returning even after treating a full round of Pimafix. Since I got all the shards of white rock out, no more white growth and no more sulfur smell.🤷‍♀️

I have very hard water. GH shows more purple than the darkest purple on the AC test strips. I don’t remember what the readings were before adding the rock. But comparing it with another established tank I have with plants, the same driftwood—and water: ph was low in both but was .4 higher in the tank with the white stone. kh was 40 in other tank but 80 in the one with the stone. Could calcite have sulfur in it?

You can tie a string to a fork and stick a slice of zucchini or cucumber on it and when the snails get on the vegetable to feed just pull it out and cull them that way. Cut back on over feeding. Eventually the population should balance out. Snails are helpful in keeping your plants healthy and free from algae and mulm build up.

I have to put a vote in for Panda Garras. They do synchronized glass cleaning maneuvers they are never mean and they are so chummy with each other and always make us laugh. They can be very fast—their suction and propulsion is strong enough to scoot out of the water going upstream so you have to block avenues of escape especially near where the water comes out of HOB filters. (Sadly lost one this way.). But after having these guys, I hope to always be able to keep them in at least one of my tanks.

Can anyone help me to identify a mineral/rock which melted in my aquarium? It was a fist sized white rock with grey veins in it. Thought it was quartzite. Vinegar does not make it fizz. It melted down to a few thin chips (pictured below). It only took three months for this to happen. It made the water smell like sulfur and caused a white growth on the substrate that was soft and floated easily when disturbed. (Pictured below). I thought it was a fungus and had to aggressively siphon it and affected substrate out to get rid of it. It did not kill any fish but did affect water quality—because the fish were less active and worked their gills more rapidly. It did kill plants by destroying their roots. Any ideas what the mineral or rock was? Any suggestions as to how I can test remaining chips? I have to admit that I licked it to see if I could taste salt 😝(but it doesn’t have a taste). Just wanting to learn.

They love to eat duckweed and will tug way at hair algae which I appreciate greatly. I have given them objects that have hair algae on them and they pick it clean. Fun to watch. I try to give them veggies to keep them busy. They did destroy a few moss balls that I’d hoped they would just knock around! 😅

Guppysnail, I appreciated your feedback early on. I thought you might be intrigued by what I have discovered since then. Check out what I wrote to Gardenman. I think it was a melted mineral of somekind.

Gardenman, thought I would give you an update on the mystery of the white growth on my substrate: First, I decided to manually try to remove it by aggressively using a syphon. It grew back in a week. The sulfur smell increased with the amount of white growth. Then I bought Pimafix and siphoned the aggressively removing quite a bit of the sand substrate where I saw the growth. Then treated the water for seven days as directed on the Pimafix bottle. I was very disappointed to see that it was growing again under the drift wood and toward the back of the tank—not where I had seen the white growth and siphoned before. Then I noticed a strange thing. The fist sized white rock that used to be in the back of the tank had melted into a few slender chips! I haven’t had it analyzed yet—but perhaps this was the cause of the white growth?! It looked like a fungus. It smelled like sulfur and was soft and tufts of it floated easily when disturbed with my fingers. No fish died. When the growth was at it’s worst the fish were not very active and worked their gills faster. That was when I began to attack the problem. I thought the rock was quartzite but obviously it was softer. Calcite perhaps? Any ideas? What else would melt like that? It has only been in my tank since the beginning of October. From a fist sized chunk to chips in two months.🤷‍♀️ I have cleaned the areas affected to the bare bottom of the tank. I will have to add substrate when I am sure the problem is solved. How strange.

Thank you for the input! It seems like I have seen smaller amounts before that disappeared after a while—but this seemed like a lot and I started to worry. Hoping someone will let me know if it is something I need to address. All fish and invertebrates seem healthy and happy.

Now we know!!😁

😂 That’s what my husband said! Bugs, fishes and critters inspire so many sci-fi creatures! Like the evil giant ear-wigs on the “Wrath Of Kahn.”