white flaky stuff in the water

[joseph]

hey all.

i'm a newbie to the aquarium world and i was wondering why is there white flaky stuff coming out of my spray bar? i have a 4x2x2 tank with one oscar and two small plecos which i feed pellets to. I dunno why it does that. i do one water change per week (20%) and vacuum the gravel at the same time. i do water test once a week as well. to make matters worse, i changed my filter media for the first time in two months and once i reconnected the cannister.....whoa! tons of this flaky crap came out!

any help or advice would be greatly appreciated.

[OrionGirl]

Soft flakes or hard flakes? Soft flakes could be biological gunk that's collecting on the sides of the tubes, and getting knocked loose. Should be kind of slimy, and reduced feedings might help, or increased mechanical filtration. Hard flakes might be from hard water--what's GH and KH?

[O-man21]

is it on top of the tank cover..it can be deposites of calcium.

[goldfish freak]

If it is the soft semi slimy stuff, then it was likely the same thing that happened to me when I adding a new eheim canister filter to my tank. It disappeared after a while. It did not do any harm to anything in my tank. It was just ugly to look at and annoying.

[joseph]

thanks for your replies guys.

orion girl, i cleaned out the pipes leading to and from my filter and presto! no more flaky stuff. yeah, it was the gunk that builds up in the pipes. i'm gonna cut down on how much i feed my fish and i'm gonna make sure i scoop up any left over food from now on. thanks heaps!

[Wulfy]

You need to clean the pipes once in a while.
Otherwise you will get arteriosclerosis and your artieries
will close and you will die of heart attack ;)

You can use a small bottlebrush on a long stiff nylon.
I thought of making one but EHEIM makes one
that will fit your tubes. Its pricey but then you wouldnt
be in this hobby if you wanna save money ;)

[Orbitorly]

Yeah it's gunk, it happens when I pull out my lift tube up to fast.