Can anyone help me identify this on my driftwood??

[FrezhFinz]

I have a 40 gallon tank and I just recently set it up a week ago I have a weird bacteria or fungus growing on it can anyone help me identify what it is and how I can prevent it from spreading also can it be harmful to my fish if I don’t react to it? Also if you have any general tips for aquascaping with live plants how to make them live and how often should I provide them substrate tabs and do I need to add Co2? I was thinking off adding shrimp to the tank but I am trying to make it a cichlid tank so how could I make it work??

 

[outofwater]

Can't comment on the fish (cichlids) or your plans for aquascaping, but that looks like fungus to me. Was this store-bought or did you collect the driftwood yourself? You might need to remove it, boil it and scrub it before you add it back, afaik some surface fungus may not affect fish, others do, so it's a crapshoot you definitely don't want to gamble on

 

[FrezhFinz]

Thank you so much for the information I greatly appreciate I am going to work on it right away thank you for your help!

 

[outofwater]

Give the post a few more hours or a couple of days, there are folks here with far more knowledge and experience than me that will chime in and you'll get useful info. Good luck

 

[FrezhFinz]

Give the post a few more hours or a couple of days, there are folks here with far more knowledge and experience than me that will chime in and you'll get useful info. Good luck

So far the community has been great and thank you once again

 

[JuiceBox52]

Unless you have very high maintenance tanks you shouldn’t need co2

 

[Colin_T]

Fungus. Take the wood outside and hose it off, then put the wood back in the tank.

If fish start dying, the fungus is poisonous and the wood should be removed permanently.

 

[FrezhFinz]

Unless you have very high maintenance tanks you shouldn’t need co2

Okay thank you so much for the info I want to get more plants in the future

 

[FrezhFinz]

Fungus. Take the wood outside and hose it off, then put the wood back in the tank.

If fish start dying, the fungus is poisonous and the wood should be removed permanently.

I am going to try the boiling route first and see how that goes have you tried that before??

 

[Colin_T]

You don't need to boil wood and it doesn't normally fix the problem. The fungus grows from the rotting wood. When the wood stops rotting, the fungus stops growing. Just hose it off and see how it goes. It usually stops growing after a few months.

 

[Slaphppy7]

It won't come off with a hose, use a clean scrub brush & hot tap water.

The majority of the time, driftwood "snot" is completely harmless.

 

[FrezhFinz]

You don't need to boil wood and it doesn't normally fix the problem. The fungus grows from the rotting wood. When the wood stops rotting, the fungus stops growing. Just hose it off and see how it goes. It usually stops growing after a few months.

Okay will do I will keep that in mind thank you

 

[FrezhFinz]

It won't come off with a hose, use a clean scrub brush & hot tap water.

The majority of the time, driftwood "snot" is completely harmless.

It won't come off with a hose, use a clean scrub brush & hot tap water.

The majority of the time, driftwood "snot" is completely harmless.

Yeah if it keeps reappearing I will just repeat the process over thank you for your input I’ll try to keep that in mind with the snot but still don’t want to risk it