Super Sludge

[Tommy Gunnz]

Hey everyone, I got a weird question.

My wife and I own two 55 gallon tanks and one 10 gallon tank. My problem is with the two larger tanks. One of the tanks is fed primarily flake food and cleaned every single Sunday afternoon, always. The other tank is fed primarily sinking pellets and frozen food, rarely if ever any flake food. This tank is also cleaned on Sundays and both are usually 20 to 25% water changes.

However, I have noticed recently that the filter cartridges are filling up with some greenish brown sludge that looks and feels a lot like soggy flake food. The filter media is changed monthly, but cleaned biweekly with luke warm water to prevent clogging. This has not been a problem until it got hot out, but both the tanks are keeping the same temperatures as normally and are in an air conditioned room. Both tanks have been running for about 6 months or so, but the flake fed tank is actually an older tank that I got from a friend. (I cleaned it profusely before putting it up in my house though)

The question I have is could this be some sort of algea growth or other type of plant material. (Neither tank has anything but fake plants in it.) Is this something I should be concerned about or could it be a result of the higher outside temperatures? What can I do to help prevent this besides the rising of the filter media every other day like I have been? I am just worried that I am depleting the good bacteria supply from the tank by doing this.

Any ideas, information, or suggestions would be greatly appreciated. Thank you all for the great help I always get from this forum!

 

[StingrayKid]

Sounds to me like its just an overfeeding issue as far as the mystery sludge goes. Try to cut down on the flake food that you give the fish in your two large tanks. Or, you might also want to do bi-weekly water changes, until the problem stops. If youre worried about depleting your beneficial bacteria inside your filter media, simply try washing the media out in a bucket of water from your tank, so they arnt killed from anything in the pure tapwater. It very well could be a algae problem as well. Do you have a build up of green "stuff" on your tanks glass?

 

[wodesorel]

I get the same sludge in my filter. It was so bad that it had completely filled the tubes into the filter! I think it's some sort of algea. About a month after I noticed it in my filter (and cleaned it out), I started to get green algea growing in my tank. It's stayed manageable so far, except inside the filter, which has to be cleaned out completely and the media rinsed in tank water every two weeks.

 

[Tommy Gunnz]

So far, no, there is not a problem with algea inside the tank. I have already been through one algea bloom because I was silly enough to place one tank next to a big sliding glass window. I solved that pretty quickly with a short move and putting a background that 'wraps' around the side of the tank closest to the window.

I think the weird thing here is that I am not feeding any flake food to one of the two tanks, but both tanks have this problem. I am starting to guess more and more that it is some sort of algea growth, but I am still unsure. I have checked the filter completely and the tubes were dirty, but not plugged.

Thanks for the info!