White Dots On Tank Wall

[Gir]

I tried to do a search on this but the posts were unanswered or did not apply to me. My tank is almost a week old now and only today (nothing yesterday), I see small (1mm or less) round white dots speckling the lower half of the tank. They are opaque and wholly white. I can remove them with my fingernail but it requires a bit of scraping to get it totally clean. They are hard almost like a mineral desposit except it does not crumble. The main piece just breaks off and floats away. More scraping is required to remove the residual "ghost" on the tank wall. They do not move nor have legs. Some are slightly clustered, many are not. Their growth pattern actually somewhat reminds me of the beginning growth of bacterial colonies on a petri dish. I would take a picture but my camera does not have such a fine macro capability. Any ideas?

My tank has had 2 water changes in the past week it's been up. It's cycling along quite well with ammonia levels at 0 and nitrites a bit less than 0.5 and nitrates around 10ish currently. There is either no or barely any uneaten food as the danios will surely find it. I vacuumed half the gravel 2 days ago when I did a water change (only half because I siphoned it away too quickly. oops!). The current stock is 5 danios, 3 lemon tetras and 1 paradise fish. The tank in which my paradise fish was in before I moved him to this tank did not have this issue. Yesterday, I brought back a danio with a cut on his side and one white spot (ich?) growing in exchange for a healthy one. The returned one came home with the cut but the spot was new yesterday. All the tank mates are acting normally and the cloudy water has been clearing with each day so I assume it was a bacterial bloom. I only have artificial plants and the spots do not *appear* to be growing on them or the resin decor. The tank only receives indirect sunlight and it's been cloudy most days.

Sorry for the long post but I wanted to give out as much info to help figure out what is going on. I plan to clean the gravel tomorrow and try and scrape the tank with an algae scraper and see how well that works. Any ideas in the meantime?

Thanks!

 

[d3tained]

Hey there.I also have this but mine comes of very easily, its got a "Snotty" feeling to it.Bacteria I would say.

 

[fishstick]

I have also had this problem of white dots in the tank, in my case they are mainly on my mopani wood although if I dont get them off each day I find them on the tank wall too. I have posted this query ( what are they and how do I get rid of them?) in 3 different sections of TFF, but with very few replies. Some suggestions are fungus or snail eggs and I know the white dots are not these but think they must be some sort of limpet as they are so difficult to clean off and crush like shell.Like you am waiting for a reply.

 

[Gir]

Why are we the only freakish ones with this problem?? I believe I read your posts in searching the forums. So I tried to scrape it off today with the algae scraper and it didn't budge. Not surprised there. My dots are not slimey. They are most definitely hard. They also don't move. I marked the position of a select few with a permanent marker and there's no change. Aren't limpets marine or are there freshwater versions? My tank is freshwater, not even a smidge of salt added. Though I have a piece of driftwood, I have not added it to the tank yet.

Fishstick, have you found any adverse effects on your fish with these mystery dots? Have you asked your lfs? I will see if mine might have any ideas.

 

[robyngunston]

I tried to do a search on this but the posts were unanswered or did not apply to me. My tank is almost a week old now and only today (nothing yesterday), I see small (1mm or less) round white dots speckling the lower half of the tank. They are opaque and wholly white. I can remove them with my fingernail but it requires a bit of scraping to get it totally clean. They are hard almost like a mineral desposit except it does not crumble. The main piece just breaks off and floats away. More scraping is required to remove the residual "ghost" on the tank wall. They do not move nor have legs. Some are slightly clustered, many are not. Their growth pattern actually somewhat reminds me of the beginning growth of bacterial colonies on a petri dish. I would take a picture but my camera does not have such a fine macro capability. Any ideas?

My tank has had 2 water changes in the past week it's been up. It's cycling along quite well with ammonia levels at 0 and nitrites a bit less than 0.5 and nitrates around 10ish currently. There is either no or barely any uneaten food as the danios will surely find it. I vacuumed half the gravel 2 days ago when I did a water change (only half because I siphoned it away too quickly. oops!). The current stock is 5 danios, 3 lemon tetras and 1 paradise fish. The tank in which my paradise fish was in before I moved him to this tank did not have this issue. Yesterday, I brought back a danio with a cut on his side and one white spot (ich?) growing in exchange for a healthy one. The returned one came home with the cut but the spot was new yesterday. All the tank mates are acting normally and the cloudy water has been clearing with each day so I assume it was a bacterial bloom. I only have artificial plants and the spots do not *appear* to be growing on them or the resin decor. The tank only receives indirect sunlight and it's been cloudy most days.

Sorry for the long post but I wanted to give out as much info to help figure out what is going on. I plan to clean the gravel tomorrow and try and scrape the tank with an algae scraper and see how well that works. Any ideas in the meantime?

Thanks!

Hi there!

Maybe they are planaria?
http/experts.about.com/q/Fish-1472/Tiny-...ite-Looking.htm

I had them in my tank and they were like little white spots all over the glass....they appeared not to move but if you kept an eye on them closely over a few days they would? I think someone told me they appeared if you were adding to much food as they feed on this?

 

[fishstick]

I do not think the white spots are planaria. My Fishlopedia says planaria have 'a V shaped head and a slow gliding motion over aquarium surfaces' P291 Chapter on Pests. My fish don't seem bothered by them and I place much more weight on the advice from this forum than from my lfs- I'm afraid it never occcured to me to ask them!

 

[robyngunston]

I do not think the white spots are planaria. My Fishlopedia says planaria have 'a V shaped head and a slow gliding motion over aquarium surfaces' P291 Chapter on Pests. My fish don't seem bothered by them and I place much more weight on the advice from this forum than from my lfs- I'm afraid it never occcured to me to ask them!

Oh well, sorry I couldn't be of more help

 

[Lost Cause]

OK, this is a long shot:

Did you purchase your tank brand-new or secondhand ?

If you purchased it secondhand, then was it used by its previous keeper as a marine tank ? Why do I ask - well here's a little story of what happened to me when I purchased a used Juwel Vision 180 off eBay...

Having won the auction for the Vision 180, I turned up to collect the tank to only find that the guy hadn't cleaned it. He'd used it for marines. Not only was it filthy, but it was covered in coralline algae - and I mean *really* covered. Have a google on coralline algae, but in overview, when it has grabbed hold in a tank then it makes the glass look like it's got white paint spots all over it. Rock hard white paint spots.

Anyhow, I lost all my evenings for a week carefully cleaning this stuff off with a metal blade- it was a soul destroying job indeed. But eventually I had a dry empty tank that looked liked it had just come out of its box. As I was going tropical, then my friends and the web re-assured me that the hateful stuff would not return as it can't grow in freshwater.

Imagine my mood when tiny white dots (looking for all the world like the start of coralline algae growth) appeared all over my immaculate glass only a couple of days after filling it. Being a very experienced coralline algae scraper by this stage, then to me it seemed the dreaded stuff had returned, and could grow in freshwater after all. I was heart-broken.

However, there was a happy ending. After two to three weeks (I can't remember the exact period - perhaps I've buried it), it all completely disappeared with no human intervention required.

Hence, as a very long shot, I'm going to guess your tank is secondhand, was used before as a marine set-up, and there was coralline algae in the tank. The tank was cleaned before selling to you, and you're now experiencing a brief flare-up again before it dies back and vanishes (without and cleaning required) because the stuff can't survive in freshwater.

If you have a brand-new tank, then I hope you enjoyed the story anyway.

 

[fishstick]

Hi Lost Cause yes I did enjoy the story and I hope your hard work was worthwhile. Although my tank is brand new I am hoping that they will just go away. There is another rash of them today, perfectly formed; I never see them half formed. I am wondering if they could be like mushrooms as they mostly are on the wood. On a piece of wood that has been out of the tank for some time I have some old ones that have sunk in the middle as though there was something soft inside that has dried out. Its all very odd, more so as no one really seems to know...

 

[Lost Cause]

Hi Fishstick - I didn't think my story fitted with yours entirely, but it might with Gir's as the description given there rings a few bells with me e.g. mineral, hard, opaque, etc.

I'm still a bit of a newbie, so can't really help any further unfortunately - I still have quite a bit to learn ! I have some freshwater bumble-bee nerite snails in my tank, and they occassionally lay eggs (mostly on my mopani wood, but sometimes the glass) which look and feel like tiny little pieces of rice, or sugar grains. Some on the internet claimed that nerites never lay eggs, but I know that not to be true now.

Good luck though with your problem !

 

[Gir]

Thanks all for the effort in trying to figure out what these things are. I've been recently preoccupied by an outbreak of disease in my tank so I haven't concerned myself with the dots. I think I got "bad" fish from my lfs. So far, the dots haven't grown much (I think) or moved at all (according to the marks I made).

Planaria? Definitely not. They aren't oblong and have no dark gut. It's all opaque white and round.

Cyclops larvae? They don't have legs or is that only viewable under the microscope? I'll try and poke them again but they don't seem to budge. I would assume there would be adults to lay these eggs or that some of the eggs have hatched. However, I don't see anything floating around other than maybe some feces.

Coralline algae? I did enjoy your story. Thank you. I'm sorry to hear you had to go through that, but glad that it all worked out! Maybe your story will help someone else in the future. As for me, I did get this tank 2nd hand (from my bro-in-law) but it's always been a freshwater tank. However, he says that he's never had this problem even though it was slightly brackish (a bit of salt added but not a real brackish tank). Do you think that it would be salty enough for this algae? He only had a typical algae outbreak (green stuff) once. But again, he did not have the white spots all over the tank. I hope you are right though and that it will clear up.

I don't know about you, but this is starting to feel like a quiz show with no ending winner...In the meantime, I'll try and call up my lfs to pick their brains for a possible answer. Fishstick, if I remember, I'll ask about your mopani wood problem. More heads together, the better!

 

[Lost Cause]

Hi Gir,

Thank you for the reply. Alas, my knowledge isn't good enough to know if coralline algae can grow in brackish conditions - but I suspect not.

Good luck with your problem, I shall lurk and see if it works out for you.

 

[Froydis]

Did any of you find out what the white dots are? I'm pretty sure I have the same thing in my tank, and I've had them for over a year now. Strange stuff!

 

[8511swann]

Did any of you find out what the white dots are? I'm pretty sure I have the same thing in my tank, and I've had them for over a year now. Strange stuff!

Do you have any Corys in your tank?

 

[Froydis]

 

Did any of you find out what the white dots are? I'm pretty sure I have the same thing in my tank, and I've had them for over a year now. Strange stuff!

Do you have any Corys in your tank?
 

I used to but the white stuff appeared sometime after they were moved from that tank. What do you think it might have been?