Fuzzy white stuff on my driftwood. HELP!

[thief]

Hey all,

Well for those who know I have a Mini M tank and I am ready for buying my plants but this is the only obstacle in my way. I did some search on it but I took some picture's. Also I haven't ever seen this fuzzy stuff before. This is a pretty new tank so I would think it is because of the Cycling. I have seen a type of snotty stuff in one of my crayfish tanks but it doesn't look at all like in this tank.


Here are some pics:











Anyways thats what it looks like in my tank. Now I would like to know why it happened?

And how to get rid of it?

Thanks for reading.

[fishman9809]

its ok, its ok, its just manzanita fungus. ive had it too. dose excel, well, over dose. its easy to get rid of. that how i got rid of mine.

[@marko@]

You've got mold! (meant to sound like the aol: youve got mail)

[Complexity]

I've never heard of manzanita fungus (but there's lots of things I haven't heard of). My manzanita driftwood did have some slimy stuff in a few places, but nothing as much as that. The slime I got was while I was soaking the wood in a filtered extra tank. I just sprayed it off with a good jet of water.

Then the wood dried out while I was working on a design. When I finally got it ready to go into the actual tank, I've never seen the slime again.

You can try the excel option and see what happens. Or try spraying the slime off and put the wood back in to see if it becomes slimy again. Or try both to see which works best!

I wouldn't be adding fish right now because they will only complicate things when you're trying to OD excel or moving stuff around to wash the ooze off. However, I have had some slime from driftwood in a tank with fish and inverts without any harm to them at all. I'd suggest holding off on the fish simply to make life easier for you to clean the slime up without worrying about the effects your methods could have on the new, and therefore already stressed, fish.

[thief]

Thanks a lot guys for the info.

I don't have any excel or ferts as well I will be making these tanks into shrimp breeders. But he washing off method seems pretty good. only thing is that it took me a good 40 minutes just to position all the wood I got in the Mini M. But still I want t get this baby planted.

[fishman9809]

it'll come back after you scrape it, ive tried scraping it, either boiling or excel helps.

[skoorbza]

On another thread, someone (maybe BiscuitSlayer?) recommended the dishwasher, run without soap. Lots of heat, lots of spray.

[Complexity]

It wasn't BiscuitSlayer. it was MedRed. I don't remember where he discussed it, but he posted a picture of it after washing it 7 times in the manzanita driftwood thread:

http://www.plantedtank.net/forums/sw...tml#post635385

[ikuzo]

http://www.floridadriftwood.com/aqua..._driftwood.htm
look at the bottom page

[Complexity]

Nice info, ikuzo! I wonder if my wood drying out is what stopped the fungus instead of me washing it off? I never boiled my wood, but then I didn't have anything close to what's pictured above. Just a few pieces of wood with a few spots.

So maybe when the wood dried out, the fungus died, and then putting the wood in an active tank (that already has wood) repopulated the wood with bacteria which ensured that the fungus didn't come back. Or something like that.

[thief]

Wow I'm glad I started this thread a lot of good material. ikuzo that's a really good link. I always new hat it had to do with the Nitrogen cycle. I guess it just takes a while for the bacteria to get all the way down into the would.

UPDATE-

Well yesterday I washed the wood really good with a toothbrush and got the majority off from what I was able to see. I wake up this morning and find that there is a good 1-2mm coat of the stuff. But I might go down to Petco today. Hopefully they will have excel. Is the brand Seatchem? I don't really know what the bottle looks like.

[lauraleellbp]

Yep, Seachem. The bottle is white and green. Looks like Seachem's Flourish fert bottle, except it says "Excel" instead.

[finfan]

i have had this in tanks where i put a brand new wood, if you are patient, it will actually go away in time, some snails will gobble it up too, but time usually takes care of it, it does not harm fish or plants, or at least it did not in my case and from others i have heard from

[A Hill]

Thief I wouldn't worry about it just plant the tank and whatnot, It'll go away on its own.

It does look pretty cool though :hihi

-Andrew

[ColeMan]

Too weird - I had this stuff creep up on my the first 2-3 weeks I was cycling, though it only happened on one really small section of driftwood (which is crazy - I have a TON of ADA old black wood in my tank). I just rubbed it off with my fingers and sucked it up with a water change because I didn't want to look at it...it came back once or twice (not bad, just a few little snot balls [technical term] here and there) but disappeared without a trace as quick as it came. I gasped in horror when I first saw the nasty stuff, but I quickly realized it was nothing to worry about.