Can fake plants get diseases?

I had a plastic plant and today I noticed some fuzzy stuff on it. It scared me so I took it out and threw it away... didnt want to take any chances. I was just wondering though what it could have possibly been and if I overreacted?

 

It was probably some sort of algae. You can usually just rinse them off.

 

LOL, it was algae, haha. Or it was an onset of algae. Algae are very easy to rinse off fake plants. Fake plants cannot possibly get a disease because they're not any kind of organic matter.

 

white algae?

 

When I had fake plants (newly purchased), yes, there would be whitish stuff on them before algae would grow on them. I think it's an onset of algae. Especially, if the fake plants you had were new. There will always be stuff growing and accumulating on fake plants because they're difficult to clean for an algae eater. Whatever you have is not dangerous as long as your fake plants are aquarium-safe. Just clean them, that's all.

 

White sounds great compared to the BLACK stuff all over my plastic plants. I'm switching to planted after I get my new tank set up.

 

Hmm... I guess I was a lil hasty. It just freaked me out cuz I forget what its called but ive heard of that fish disease that looks like cotton and that is what this looked like. Oh well... I don't think I'm taking it out of the garbage . It was tiny anyway... plus I want to start getting real plants too ;D.

 

Well, I don't blame you. You can never be too careful with fish. The cottony stuff you're thinking of could either be fungus or "fake" fungus--columnarius or something?--which are fish diseases, wouldn't grow on a plastic plant.