Can Good Biofilms Go Bad?

[karin]

Can the good biofilms that form around the tank that are good, be knocked out of whack, over produce and start fouling the tank by robbing it of oxygen? If so, how might this happened?

I have a clear slime on everything. It is so intense that it can clog the sponges of my filters with a sticky slime and cause them to drop substantially in performance, more than 70% I would say. Then the fish start gasping. I put a third filter on the tank and am watching the other two and put a bubble bar i. This and 10-20% water changes daily, I'm maintaining the water quality (Ammonia 0, Nitrites 0 and Nitrates 0... this last one maybe caused by tons of water changes since this happened). As long as I maintain this the fish are doing okay. But no one seems to know what is going on here. Any ideas on how I can speed recovery. Thoughts?

 

[waterdrop]

Hi Karin,

Well, the microbial life and water chems that we discuss so frequently here on the forum are of course only a tiny subset of the overall potential life and chemistry going on in the tank. We discuss the things we care about because of their need for fish or plants or problems but there can be many more things that might go on.

I've seen plenty of posts about ugly slimes, molds and fungi here on the forum but clear is not one that particularly sticks in my memory ( not surprising considering how much stuff I forget!) The most common advice is to just keep on cleaning and doing things normally and many of these things will eventually go away on their own. Hopefully an answer will drop in your lap from another member or your own searches of old posts or other seb sites will turn something up that you can use and share. Good luck!

~~waterdrop~~