White Dots On Fishtank?

[OldMan47]

You have quite hard water there HBDudeJess. The area around Athens is reputed to be quite hard due the water source being deep rock formations. Chances are you would be best off with fish like the common livebearers or African cichlids in your tanks because the local water would suit them better than the South American fish. That does indeed look like "hard water deposits", meaning calcium deposits resulting from the evaporation of hard water.

 

[hbdudejess]

thanks for the tips! how do you reccomend that i clean it off of the tank?

 

[waterdrop]

You can do searches on TFF to find discussions of removing calcium deposits. There are tons of things people suggest. I sometimes get one surface of the object to be cleaned into a good position and pour a puddle of common white vinegar on it to sit for a period, then I take a big piece of fresh lime or lemon rind and begin rubbing in the puddle of vingar and just work on a small area at a time for as long as I can stand to do it.

I think there are more advanced and dangerous acids you can use but of course they require many more precautions. Giving chemicals time to work and then lots of elbow grease are often two key factors no matter what route you go with chemistry. You also have to think about the underlying surface and whether it might be damaged by the chemicals (glass vs plastic vs other things).. perhaps testing on an out of the way place.

~~waterdrop~~