Cotton Looking Stuff in Tank

[wcolwell88]

I have a small 5 gal. tank about 1 week old and I have recently noticed a couple small sections of a light stringy cottony looking stuff at the bottom of the tank. I was thinking it might be some kind of algae but it is a white color. I have a 1" layer of black tahitian moon sand from Carib Sea's Super Naturals collection for my substrate. I have a few plant bulbs in the bottom waiting to sprout, 1 of these bulbs has the cottony stuff on top of it, the other spot of cottony stuff is just by itself on the substrate. The tank is filled with conditioned tap water. I've used API's Stress Coat and Stress Zyme in the water along with 1 dose of Plant Gro by Nutrafin. When I first noticed it yesterday, I had 1 small angel fish and 1 violet goby (I now know this is a brackish fish, but I already have him and have no brackish tank to put him in so I can't do anything about that) in the tank. I just added a few guppies today. I tried to take a picture to help show what I'm talking about but I couldn't get any clear pictures. Does anybody know what this might be. Furthermore, does anyone have tips on how they get such clear pictures things inside their aquarium?

 

[jm1212]

that sand was "live sand" i believe, and what you are seeing is probably the fungus from rotting organisms that lived in the sand until you put it into freshwater

 

[wcolwell88]

I don't think its live sand

The price was higher than plain play sand but not near as high as the live sand I will be buying for my saltwater tank. The bag says:
SUPER NATURALS
Aquarium Gravel
from around the world

And then toward the bottom of the bag it says:
No Plastic Coatings
Rinse Before Use
Safe for Fresh or Saltwater

I don't think live sand would be considered ok for freshwater, also I don't think you are susposed to wash live sand.

 

[jm1212]

nope, you arent supposed to rinse live sand... how well did you rinse it before you put it in the tank? it still sounds like some fungus. perhaps the bulb has died

 

[wcolwell88]

I probably could have rinsed it better. I find it a little hard to rinse sand as it has such small particles.

 

[jm1212]

since ti was not live sand, chances are there wasnt anything living in it that couldve died. if the fungus is growing on the bulb also, it could be that it was a bad bulb and died after it grew a little and the roots spread throughout the sand and began to rot.

 

[wcolwell88]

I'll take that bulb out of the tank and see if I get any more fungus tomorrow.

 

[J double R]

tahitian moon sand from caribsea is not a saltwater live sand.

 

[lucid_boy]

i've seen the same stuff in my tank, it is a 55 gal freshwater but the water has only been cycling for around 2 weeks now. but this is probably caused by me overfeeding my fish then correct?

 

[mellowvision]

I had a few bulbs that grew white jelly like fungus when I first planted them. I took them out and rinsed them a few times over 2 weeks and it went away.