white hairy mold in aquarium

fishybert

hi peeps,

i've just recently restarted keeping an aquarium, and from what i remember this rarely or never happens -- i.e. white hairy mold growing on uneaten food (and unfortunately on a dead RCS carcass). The mold resembles really thick spider webbing.

Is there something off in my water chemistry? i'd rather not use chlorine or any nasty stuff and go as natural as possible. tia

1077

Don't know what your water chemistry is.
Can feed less food and reduce frequency of feedings .
Excess food on the bottom can be removed during weekly water change with gravel syphon .

Adamson

First of all welcome to the tropical fish keeping forum!

Remove excess food after feeding them.. what kind of food is it?

Byron

Welcome to Tropical Fish Keeping forum.

This white fur is fungus, and it will grow on any uneaten food on or above the substrate. Reduce this by feeding less (whenever uneaten food remains and develops fungus, you can be certain that too much is being fed for the fish). Deal with any leftover if it does occur, either be removing it or having critters that will deal with this.

Substrate fish usually prevent this, but make sure you acquire fish you like and that fit in with the current inhabitants and tank size. One should never acquire any fish solely to deal with some "problem."

Snails are a valuable resource for this. They will usually ensure nothing remains, and by ingesting food and waste they break it down into smaller particles that the bacteria can then more easily handle.

Byron.

fishybert

Thanks for your replies. i do keep a few red cherry shrimp in the tank. i'd like to feed them some veggies once in a while. Right now i've resorted to tying them to a string so i can retrieve the leftovers without getting wet.