miraloma

I'm still cycling my tank, which started about 2 weeks ago. I'm changing the water every 5 days or so with 2 fish in the tank. 3 days ago, I saw a bunch of fuzzy white things growing on the left over fish food, so I did a massive water change. I'm seeing them again growing on my plants. The fish so far seem ok and nothing's growing on them so I'm thinking it's not ich.

Is my tank diseased or do I just need to change the water again? What exactly is that and how do I prevent it? Is it simply too much food? Does that thing affect the health of my fish? Thanks in advance for your advice!

jsalemi

It's probably a type of algae; I had stuff like that growing on my driftwood in my 56g. It didn't seem harmful --the corys nibbled at it a bit, and the snails I put in there from my 10g have made short work of clearing most of it off.

If you have that much leftover food, you're feeding your fish too much. Remember that their stomaches are no bigger than their eye, so only give them as much food as they can eat in a couple of minutes. Once your tank is cycled, you'll want to add a 'clean-up' crew to take care of the food that hits the bottom. Depending on the tank size, that could be a snail or two, some corys, or regular catfish. When you're ready to add them, read the relevant sections of this site about the clean-up crew you want to add, to make sure they don't get too big for your tank (some catfish can grow to a foot or more).

miraloma

> It's probably a type of algae; It didn't seem harmful.
Good to know!

>If you have that much leftover food, you're feeding your fish too much.
I have some bamboo plants and food sometimes end up on or around the bamboo leaves. My fish don't seem to eat those for some reason.

> Depending on the tank size, that could be a snail or two, some corys, or regular catfish.
This is actually going to be my shrimp only tank. Maybe fry nursery if I end up with them so I can separate them from their parents. It's a 10 gallon tank without a heater.

jsalemi

The shrimp will be a great cleanup crew too.