Extremely Weird.. Fungus Growth?

[Swordtail29]

Hi everyone! ive got a preety serious situation here.. and tbh im kinda lost on what to do.. my tank is a Juwel trigon 190, ive had it for about 8 months now, not brand new mind.. got it when we initialy bought the house, sorta came with it lol.

The problem is.. although ive cleaned it out more than once i might add since owning it.. ive got this huge fungus problem growing inside the tank, and ive tried everything to remove this problem.. from water changes to scrubbing the entire tank.. but it eludes me where in the world this stuff is comming from, its not algae at all.. its thick black like tar.. and its growing at an unatural rate.

Yesterday it was about 0.4mm in size in terms of the growth formation the "Spurs" as i like to call them, Today however.. its much much worse.. how in the world does this even happen.. and what on earth is it?? its killing my entire tank and my swordtails my gold barbs.. they love the stuff for some reason, even though its basicly killing them! Its eatting my filtration system alive, and ive already cleaned out the entire filter section last time arround, because it got so out of hand the spounge's themself all turned black.. with a thick overgrowth..

Also i might add the smell from the tank is musky.. very damp and a slight acidic smell, kinda like a battery weirdly enough, yet the ph level in there is the same as its always been 7.8 which is completely normal.. the nitrate also normal.. i clean the tank out with a hoover i bought a few weeks ago thinking it would help eliminate this problem, but no such luck.. Screenshots are below.. will someone please tell me what this stuff is, because ive tried everything now and nothing is working.. where the hell is it all comming from??

This is the side of the tank, looking at the filtration system.. getting blocked by it (again)



This is another view of the tank.. notice how its eatting my tank alive :\



So does anyone know what in the world this stuff is exactly?

 

[colleen0309]

It looks like the stuff I had growing in my 55 gal planted tank. But it didn't kill my fish. And it wasn't that hard to get rid of it. All I did was clean it off of everything and added a powerhead for more water flow and it went away. Sorry I am no help.

 

[Alm0stAwesome]

That's just black beard algae (aka BBA) it's nothing sinister but yes, is a nuisance and won't be killing your fish. It's apparently pretty hard to get rid of. I'm not much help but here's an article that talks about it Black Beard Algae

You also said that you're fish are dying, the algae isn't the cause. Could you tell us a bit more about your tank? Size? Stock?

 

[Swordtail29]

That's just black beard algae (aka BBA) it's nothing sinister but yes, is a nuisance and won't be killing your fish. It's apparently pretty hard to get rid of. I'm not much help but here's an article that talks about it Black Beard Algae

You also said that you're fish are dying, the algae isn't the cause. Could you tell us a bit more about your tank? Size? Stock?

Yes the fish go mad over the > BBA < thanks for identifying this btw! there eatting it non stop.. its rate of growth is incredible though.. i cant slow it down no matter what i do, anyways ive got 5 female swordtails in there (adults) 1 baby swordtail which is 3 months old now, and another swordtail a male thats one month old today, lol -
That was born an Albino male - (its preety!) also i have 4 Gold barbs (no idea on their gender).


As for the tank its a Trigon 190 so its 190 litres 41.8 gallon. its a typical 190 setup so it includes all what you would expect the filtration system standard mounted onto the back of the tank, the heater the pump ( note the oxygen in there is fantastic )
as is everything. its crystal clear water it looks amazing.. the BBA is growing so fast that its even turning the stones at the bottom of the bed dark black now.. and that aint no good.. they were crystal blue originaly.. now its turning into a complete mess! :\

As for the fish Dying.. yes its killed 2 swordtails i had more in there in the beggining.. but this BBA is a nightmare to get rid of, it completely and utterly overtook the filtration system.. it turned every spounge black and in the end the fish were gasping for air (I hate seeing this) .. i acted as soon as i realised they were in danger and cleared out the entire system head to toe. .. only for the dam stuff to come back about a week later.

I believe it might be living - Behind the filtration system itself, its mounted/glued originaly onto the glass at the back.. but ive been looking along it and there is a lil break in the seal, so i believe it may be living in there.. Whats weird is i completely drained the tank last time arround, and didnt put the fish back in till i was certain it was all gone, and yet it somehow managed to survive 2 days without any water or oxygen :\

Also its completely killing simple ornaments that i have in their.. the palm tree ornament which everyone seems to have for example is completely black.. lol the leave's on it are dyed so black its impossible to remove the diss-colouration, so thats one ornament completely ruined..

 

[Alm0stAwesome]

Do you have any live plants?

When you cleaned your filter. How did you clean the filter pads? And one more, how long has the tank been up and running with these fish in it?

 

[Swordtail29]

Do you have any live plants?

When you cleaned your filter. How did you clean the filter pads? And one more, how long has the tank been up and running with these fish in it?

No live plants in there at all, ive never had live plants.. was thinking about it, but with this problem.. i'd rather go with one hurdle at a time.

The filtration system was cleaned by litrely buying new sponge's.. which was quite costly :\

and as for the tank the fish have been in there about 4 months, in the beggining there was no issue at all when they first went in, and then a month later.. BAM it was everywhere..

I believe i may have a solution to this now though.. i might just get a plecostomus.. seeing as it litrely hoovers up the algae, we originaly had one in there when we bought the house, but he was very old and miserable.. he advoided people non stop and was preety aggresive towards the other fish which is kinda strange, so i gave him to a kid down the road who said he loved him..

Should i just go and get another algae eatter? come to think of it i never had this problem with a pleco before.. but even still the stuff shouldnt be building up to begin with..

 

[Alm0stAwesome]

I hate to tell you this but replacing your sponges was actually a really bad move. All of the bacteria that clean your water live in there and now they are gone. Your ammonia and nitrite (which are bad and can kill your fish) are probably at high levels right now which may be why you lost a couple (gasping is a sign of ammonia poisoning). What you have going for you though is that the tank is quite lightly stocked. I recommend you read these two threads because your tank is going through what is called a "fish-in cycle"

The Nitrogen Cycle

Fish-In Cycling


The first thing to do is a large water change, 70% all in one go. Be sure to refill with dechlorinated and roughly temperature matched water. The second thing is to get a liquid freshwater test kit. Most on the forum recommend the API one. It's around £20 but will last you a long time.

It's strange that you are having this algae problem because as far as I'm aware, BBA is caused by fluctuating C02 levels, which I didn't realise happened in tanks without live plants. Maybe someone will explain this for us.

Lastly, plecos don't eat this kind of algae. Siamese algae eaters do, but do some research on them first because I know nothing about them.

Sorry this is a lot of info and not really good news but it's all manageable! Have a read of those link above and let me know any other questions you may have.

 

[Alm0stAwesome]

Also, I should have said that in the future when you need to clean your filter sponges. You only need to gently rinse them in some old tank water and put them back in. You won't want to do this for a while now because of your fish-in cycling and rinsing them would upset the young bacteria colony.

You never need to replace sponges unless they are physically falling to bits in your hands These filter manuals that tell us to change them out all the time are just about making money!

 

[Swordtail29]

Also, I should have said that in the future when you need to clean your filter sponges. You only need to gently rinse them in some old tank water and put them back in. You won't want to do this for a while now because of your fish-in cycling and rinsing them would upset the young bacteria colony.

You never need to replace sponges unless they are physically falling to bits in your hands These filter manuals that tell us to change them out all the time are just about making money!

Hey Alm0stAwesome Cheers for the reply would of thanked you yesterday but went straight to bed after a huge migrane :\.
anyway's yeah your probaly right about the cycling an all.. for most fish anyways.. but those fish wouldnt include swordtails or gold barbs.. ive found them to be very hardy fish, but the reason i replaced the sponge's to begin with is because of the bba that was so intensly over-populating my filtration system, it completely "Ate" the sponges to bits, and they stunk to high heaven.

I did originaly wash them off in tank water, but it depends on your definition of "Wash off" i guess.. because the sponges in this tank must of been way past there sell by date.. lol, the tank was bought in 2006 according to the previous owner who we bought the house off of, he never once replaced or did any maitanence to the tank at all :\ they was practicly falling to bits is what im getting at, and i know that the books state about you have to replace the filters every so often.. yeah i know thats a ploy to get more money, i always look at that and think bloody commercialism at its finest.. lol.

Originaly when i got the tank, it had 1 swordtail. and 1 silver fish (i still cant identify) and a pleco.. that was so big he overtook the dam tank and was the most unsociable fish ive ever seen.. the previous owners said they couldnt be bothered with the maitanence of it all .. so they just left the tank alone for the most part, that includes feeding the fish which tbh annoyed me, i mean why would anyone buy an aquarium and not look after the dam fish? it annoys the hell outta me how someone can be so irresponsible.

But yeah.. all in all the tank didnt have any work done on it in all that time, and when i initialy looked at the tank (first time) it was crystal clear in there.. for no maitanence as well.. i was like ehhh.. how is this possible??

I was looking all over the unit he left us, high and low and i found a container.. a "Liquid Solution" he used to clean the tank originaly buy the looks of it, so now i know how it kept crystal clear.. that solution is "Filter Aid" now.. thats a preety intense treatment to put in there to begin with.. god only knows what condition the tank must of been in before they had people round viewing the house.. it certainly makes you wonder though.