White Spots On Glass

[BettaBoysGirl]

Hey everyone, I think I might have a problem. I'm currently cycling a tank that has only plants (no other live creratures).I just got my nitrite spike two days ago. However, 24 hours after the spike, I'm seeing white fuzzy looking specks on my glass front, in addition, the plants have a dusty look to them (as if been collecting dust.) I do have a sponge and ceremic material in the tank in addtion to the filter. (These are added to become seeded material for a future tank.) I did use seeded filter from my lfs, which I had tied up in pantyhose. They had no diseases that I'm aware of. When I reached in and touched the glass, it had a slimy feel to it. Now when I started the tank I put in aquasafe and stess zyme. So any idea what the fuzzy white slimy spots are? Do I need to start over before I get fish?

*Update* Upon checking them today, the white spots were still white on my glass, but the "dust" on my plants is taking a slightly brown look...
Thanks!

 

[waterdrop]

Well, those sorts of things are always hard to diagnose over the internet. There are lots of type of white things, like various white fungi, that will show up in the early startup a freshwater tank. If you examine them very, very closely, especially with a magnifying glass you may find that the white things are really tiny white worms. If that's the case, these are likely to be Planaria, which is very common. Both Planaria and fungi are totally harmless and will go away on their own usually in time. In the case of Planaria the fish would even enjoy eating them if they got the chance but usually they are long gone well before fishless cycling is over.

The things on the leaves of your plants may be diatoms, a form of brown algae, assuming they continue to look like brown dust/speckles. If this is the case I would question the number of hours you are lighting the plants. Many like to start out with no more than 4 hours of light exposure and only increase that if they -don't- get algae. Algae is a problem during fishless cycling because ammonia plus light is what triggers algae spores to switch to algae cells.

~~waterdrop~~