colorless, translucent, gelatinous substance?

poolman84

I came home from work today and noticed a layer of colorless "jelly" on the lighter colored and smooth sections of the driftwood in my tank. Does anybody know what this is and what I should do about it? It's translucent and flutters in the current. There are little bubbles below the surface of it.

stephanieleah

My first thought: snail eggs (do you have pond snails in your tank?)

My second thought although it's not gelatinous but it sort of looks it: cyanobacteria (is it greenish?).

Can you post a pic?

WisFish

Sounds like snail eggs.

poolman84

This is the best pic i could get. It covers at least 7 square inches of wood. That seems excessive for snail eggs, but I know nothing of snails. I did however, recently introduce an Anubias nana plant that might have had some snail eggs in it. Also, I have not visually seen any snails...

poolman84

the pic is under my aquariums... it's on the left side of the wood and extends out 1 or 2 cm.

poolman84

and it's not green.

iamntbatman

I'm not sure exactly what it is, but it's pretty common on new pieces of driftwood. It may be some sort of fungus or something like that. I don't think it's harmful (I've read many posts about this sort of issue and it never seemed tied to fish health problems or anything like that). You can take the driftwood out and scrub the stuff off and you should be fine.