Mopani With Clear Slime

[malakye]

I had a piece of mopani (loved the shape and size so really would like to put it back if possible) in my 2ft tank, this tank is for shrimp and tiny fry, but the wood after 12 hours of being in the tank gets covered in this clean slime. I had boiled the wood for 3/4 hours prior to putting it in the tank but thought maybe I hadn't boiled it long enough so put it back into a pan and left it boiling away for about 10/11 hours just topping up the water. I took it out the pan and placed it in a bucket of water I had just taken out my main tank too cool. I recovered it with Java moss and put it back into the shrimp tank. Got up this morning and its covered in slime again. I hate it, it looks nasty and feels even worse. Its like someone has just splattered a jelly fish over my wood. How can I get rid of this?
I have bogwood and mopani wood in my 4ft tank and have never had this issue.
Also can that slime cause the ph level to drop? My 2ft tank was basically set up with everything from my 4ft tank. I ran the internal filter in my main tank for over a month before it was put into the 2ft, the water all came from my 4ft, even the plants are donors from the larger tank. My water stats in the 4ft tank are great with a ph level of 7.4. After loosing a couple of fry I checked my water stats in the 2ft tank and my ph levels have dropped to 6.6 and I can't understand why. I have done a huge water change using the large tank as a donor again and got the ph level back up but i don't know what caused it to drop in the first place, the only thing I could think of was this slime. Anyone any ideas?

 

[pippoodle]

i had this with my mopani after putting it in the tank first time and all that happened was my shrimp and snails ate the slime off of it and loved it and it never returned i did the take out and boil method first but it returned so after being told it was safe to the tank inhabitants i left it for them to clean
Wood on its own can lower the ph of a tank

 

[malakye]

Thanks pippoodle, I will clean it again, and put it in the other tank along with the amano's they and or the bigger fish might hopefully eat it off and when it is clear I can try putting it back in the fry tank.

 

[loubega]

Thanks pippoodle, I will clean it again, and put it in the other tank along with the amano's they and or the bigger fish might hopefully eat it off and when it is clear I can try putting it back in the fry tank.

hi Malakye,

i had the exact same problem, if you search through my topics you will see my posts etc.... a few people called it a bio-film and that it was harmless...

However, i didnt like the look of it so i boiled the wood for about 2-3 days (just added boiling water every 4-5 hours) then i added a lot of salt to the bucket and gave it a jolly good scrub. I then soaked it in fresh water for another 3-4 days then i lef tit to dry out for another day and placed it back in....

however the slime grew back within a week, i therefore re-did the following cycle and re-entered it into the tank, and so far so good, also i think i got almost all the tannins out in the cleaning process.

Also before i originally entered the wood, i soaked and boiled it for over a week....as per usual proceduce when entering something new into a tank.

Can i ask where you bought it from? i bought mine from P@H and have heard a few others have had the same problem with this wood...

Iwould definately reccomened scrubbing with salt and boiling if it re-emerges...and just keep perserving with it untill it doesnt come back

hope it helps

lou

 

[TylerFerretLord]

It will go away eventually on its own, no need to go to such measures to remove it.

 

[malakye]

I was actually given it free from the guy who runs the garden centre petshop, my husband fixed their laptop so they gave me 3 pieces of it. I was going to buy one piece for in the 2ft tank but couldnt decide between the 3 so they gave me 3 lol. One piece will not sinkand just floats, the other is brilliant and the biggest piece is the one with slime. I had soaked it in boiling water for 2/3 days when i first got it, then it slimed so boiled the crap out the thing and tried it again but it slimed up again. Its sitting soaking in boiled water again now, has been for a couple of days. I will try it again in the big tank and see how it goes, if it slimes up again I will probably just bin the thing.