There is mold in my tank. What is this and and is the reason why my fish are dying?

Question

I have been trying to get my tank healthy. I have had 4 platies die. 2 of them I am not sure of the reason. The water tests fine, especially since I have done a few partial water changes recently. Also, my gromie has a stringy worm hanging from her fin. I have treated the tank for parasites; however, it is still there. Help!

Answer 1

I cannot understand how mold got in there to begin with (it's probably algae). It sounds like you may not be properly cleaning your tank, and this is where the parasites came from also. First off, I would get a medication called "Quick Cure" to help with the parasites, and also get a food called "Pepso" or an anti-parasitic food and feed it to the fish for 3 days straight (no other food). The instructions are on the package. Follow the instructions for the Quick Cure also.

First and foremost though, you need to correctly clean your tank, then keep up with weekly tank maintenance, cleaning and partial water changes. It's the only way you are going to keep your fish happy and healthy. Here are 2 websites that will help you, one about cleaning a tank correctly, the other about tanks and disease: http://www.americanaquariumproducts.com/Aquarium_cleaning.html and http://www.americanaquariumproducts.com/Aquarium_Disease.html

You may also want to navigate through that site, as it is FULL of information. In addition, if you do not use aquarium salt in your tank, you should add some according the the directions, as this will help with the parasitic problem also. The parasites do not like the salt. Make sure you have no salt sensitive fish in your tank though, and if you do, only use 1/2 of the recommendation (i.e. tetras, scaleless fish).

You will need to get an aquarium scrubber also, and as you are cleaning your tank you want to scrub the sides clean and scrub the "mold" off of the tank. I don't usually recommend it, but you MAY want to move your fish to another spot while you're doing this. Just make sure wherever you put them, it is clean. This way you can really get in and scrub your tank without worrying about injuries to your fish. Also, rinse your filter media in the water you take out of the tank, not in tap water, or you will kill off all the beneficial bacteria and your tank will have to recycle all over again.

I hope this helps. Good luck!!! ;o)

Answer 2

Some types of algae are not harmful.

What size tank and how many fish are in there?
It is possibly that one of them came sick and spread disease.
Most water tests will check the nitrate, nitrite, ph....
If the test did not check the ammonia level, then get one that does that. I had about 5 fish die within a week in my tank and the tests came up fine, got a second opinion where they tested ammonia and that was the problem.

Here is something I learned from a friend, she works at her parents' aquatics store and is extremely knowledgeable when it comes to aquariums. When a fish has parasites, if it is a freshwater fish, put it in salt water for 2-3 minutes and if its a salt water fish, you put it in fresh water for 2-3 minutes.
Since yours are fresh water, you would have to buy aquarium salt to make the water to put the fish in. Freshwater fish have freshwater parasites. Putting the fish in salt water will kill the parasites, as they are not made to survive in salt water. It will not kill the fish right away, and the parasite is much smaller so it will die pretty quickly. This is why you only put the fish in the opposite kind of water for just 2-3 minutes. After that you put the fish back in its aquarium.

Here is a link to the site for the store she works at. http://www.fish-world.org/index.html
If you want to find out more about what to do, I highly suggest giving them a call (if you live in the US), there number is also on the contact us page.

Answer 3

"Mold" is a very general term which can mean a few different things, depending on who you're speaking with. You don't give enough of a description to be able to tell which you're seeing, so I'll describe both and how you might treat the problem.

Is what you're seeing in the water or on the surface? There is a water mold that's white and floats - this is usually around the rim of the tank or inside the filter. It gets into the tank as airborne particles and grows when it becomes wet. If in the filter, just unplug, dump the water out, them wipe the surfaces with a little bleach then rinse thoroughly. If it's in your tank, you may need to use a surface skimmer attachment (http://www.thatpetplace.com/pet/prod/215642/product.web ) for your filter to get it out of your tank. Because the stuff floats so well, your regular power filter can't push it underwater far enough for the intake to get it out of the water - the surface skimmer pulls directly from the top of the water and runs the water down to the filter intake. There are a couple of adapters so this can be used with most power filters, including canisters. You may have to wipe under the tank rim and underside of the filter water return to remove spores which can cause additional mold to grow if this is what you've got.

There are a couple of other "fungi" that grow underwater. Saprolegnia and Achlya only grow on dead/decaying matter and have a white "fuzzy" appearance - see this photo of it growing on a dead bug in the water: http://www.visualsunlimited.com/images/watermarked/227/227311.jpg The spores for this are universal, so you won't get the mold out of the aquarium, but you can reduce what it has available to grow on - this usually only appears if there's excess food/wastes in the tank, so you may need to do a little more to clean your gravel with a siphon to remove any buildup, and possible reduce the amount you feed so the fish finish all their food in 2-3 minutes (and feed no more than twice a day). This can also grow on fish if they're stressed, but rarely attacks healthy fish. If you see "fuzz" growing on your fish, you should first determine if this is one of the "fungi" or a bacterial condition known as Columnaris. You can tell these apart because the "fungus" will have straighter filaments and the infection will have an irregular shape where the Columnaris will be matted with the filaments twisted together and the outline of the infection will be more circular:
fungus: http://www.fishjunkies.com/Diseases/fungus.php
columnaris: http://www.fishjunkies.com/Diseases/columnaris.php

There are brush algae that resemble fungi: http://www.thekrib.com/Plants/Algae/brush-algae-small.jpg , http://www.aquaticscape.com/articles/algae/bba1.jpg but these will grow almost exclusively on plants and driftwood. See this for treatment/control: http://www.skepticalaquarist.com/docs/algae/tonealg.shtml

A final type of fungi is an odd thing that grows along the glass and rocks and is net-like in appearance: http://www.plantgeek.net/articles/gg_algae_faq/staghorn1_tb.jpg This is the worst possiblility and requires total breakdown and sterilization of everything in your tank.

As to your gourami's parasite, this sounds like an anchorworm: http://www.kattsundco.com/aquaristik/krankheiten/bilder/lernaea_gross.jpg , http://www.koisite.be/images/Ziekte/Lernea/ankerworm.jpg You don't say what you're using to treat this, but most antiparasitic medications (especially Clout, or those that contain malachite green & formalin or copper) should be effective against this.

Answer 4

there are a number of styles of algae. jointly as they often are not undesirable for the fish, they certaintly do no longer seem that super on your tank. How long are you protecting your lights furniture on? Does your tank get direct solar mild? mild is significant for algae to enhance, yet as long the fish can see sufficient to consume, they do no longer choose it. meaning, as long as your room is lit sufficient you may keep your tank lights furniture off many of the time to decrease down on algae. Your backside feeder, if he's a algae eater like the Pleco, or chinese language Algae Eater heavily isn't pleased with a transformation from green algae to black algae. green algae is the only they want/ will in all probability consume. make confident they're getting algae wafers if it particularly is the case. and make sure which you do sustain on your water transformations!!!!

Answer 5

What colour is the mold? Are you sure it's not algae? Either way I recommend that you clean the sides of the tank and continue your partial water changes and make sure there is enough oxygen in the tank - buy some oxygenating plants and a good pump with a filter (and change the filter regularly).

Answer 6

Have you been using water conditioner? Something has rotted in your tank. Make sure you change the filter on a regular basis and use water conditioner. Every now and then do a complete water change. You may have to come up with a better filter system. Sometimes the filter system is too small for a tank and is not able to do its' job.You may be doing too many partial water changes. How often do you do partial water changes?
Your fish? Take them to a vet,. or google fish health problems.
Don't want any problems with fish? Easy ones to take care of are oscars, catfish and
the ever popular goldfish of any type.
Don't get upset please. You need to do some more research on how to take care of the types of fish you have.
Good luck!!

Answer 7

If you're brave enough you could catch the fish in a net and physically remove the parasite with tweezers. Do it gently to ensure you get all of the little beastie. Then dab the area with Methylene Blue using a cotton bud, but don't get it on your fingers because it's a very strong dye!
Are you sure you have fungus, not just moss or algae?

Answer 8

i have experienced being a fish owner for a while but that never happened to me. maybe u should get another fish tank set it up put the fish in it and clean the tank and after the tank is clean put the one with the stringy thingy on it fin in the new one and the other fish in the old one. (u want to keep them separated this way that one fish does not kill all of the fishes.)

Answer 9

I agree with mrscrabs, and you can also try to carefully take the worm off with tweezers like the other person said. Some people can't stomach it though. You can try to dab the area with medication if you have it, if not, the salt and quick cure should help protect it.

Answer 10

you need to do a complete cleaning. take the fish out and empty the tankcompletely. clean all parts with soap and water. and rinse them thoughorly, then put the tank back together,let the water temp adjust to the correct temp. then put your fish back in.this shpuld be done about once a month.