Fungus?

[as40]

I recently set up my 40 gallon tank, preparing to try live plants. I emptied it and removed the old gravel, placed new very fine (rinsed) gravel mixed with Flora Base in it, and filled it with two pieces of wood and r/o water.
The wood was sold from LFS's, and one I had had in the aquarium before for over a year, the other one was new but pre-soaked for a week.
Everything seemed fine at first. I was letting my tank cycle for a while before adding plants (I still don't have plants yet and it's been over a month), but about a week and a half later, there's this nasty substance growing on the wood and a bit on the gravel which from what I could find on the forums sounds like fungus.
I attacked it by raising the aquarium temp. to around 80 degrees F, and dousing the tank with 12 or more hours of light, which seemed to sort of slow the growth. Last night I scraped off and picked out what I could; some of it had appeared to be dying but there was plenty more of it that wasn't. I then added a bit of r/o right and a bit of freshwater salt (half each of what they recommended for the amount of water I have) to the previously untreated water in hopes that the salt will attack the mystery fungus further.
The only thing I could find on the forums was that this stuff grows because of over-feeding, but I have no fish yet and my tank in theory should be close to sterile as far as waste materials go, so why am I getting this stuff?

If anyone has had similar experience with this stuff I'd appreciate any help that can be offered. I have ordered plants online from Aqua Botanic and I'm kind of afraid this stuff may hurt them, but I'm also thinking they may be able to compete with it for resources and choke it off, but I don't know. Thanks in advance for any advice.

[Leopardess]

Sometimes wood you buy can have fungus spores still inside of them. When you resubmerge them, they appear again.

I had it on a piece of wood I bought (even though I boiled it first, and it was supposedly pretreated) but ended up not using that wood anymore. I did have it in a planted tank for a couple of months with no ill effects.

Also, I believe a member I know from another forum has fungus on his wood and just lets it grow, but I can double check.


I would perhaps remove the wood and either boil it for an extended period or soak in a mild bleach solution. If you bleach it, you must be sure to soak it for a quite a while in a strong water/dechlorinator solution.

[as40]

:( Unfortunately I'm afraid if I took the wood out and boiled it that wouldn't solve the problem now because the fungus (if that's what it is) spread to the top of the gravel and the other wood that is in there.

If I boiled that piece, I'd have to boil it all, and empty the tank, and disinfect the gravel.

Scraping it off helped remove the bulk of it, but I can already see that it is growing back a bit, though less than before, so I'm hoping I can keep scraping and get rid of it through water changes. Do you think that might help? Is there anything that may be added to the water that might help? :confused:

I got my plants in the mail the other day, and have placed them in the tank. They didn't look too good when they arrived; but they are looking a tad bit better when I checked them today. Cross your fingers for them, folks.

[MrGoodbytes]

I got fungus on a wooden airstone that was in my aquarium. I got tired of scraping it and took it out.

Now I have a weird white stuff on some of my plants. It's a bit tough to scrape off, but I think it's just dead algae.

I agree boiling seems like the best option.

[as40]

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Quote from Leopardess:

Also, I believe a member I know from another forum has fungus on his wood and just lets it grow, but I can double check.
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That'd be cool if I don't have to worry about it, so long as it doesn't bother my plants or fish. Do you think snails might eat it too?

Looks like I got a few unwanted travelers along with my plants. :rolleyes: