I have set up a new 200 L tank two weeks ago. It was cycled successfully and now I have several small fish in it (Neon Tetra, Zebra danio, Tiger barbs). Everything seemed to be OK but today I noticed something strange.
There are some white spots on the glass of the aquarium and all over the tocks, plants, etc. These look like a tiny cottony trees, about 1-2 mm in size attached by the "tree roots" to the glass/rocks, etc and extending their "branches" upwards. They somehow look like hydras but much smaller and the stems are very thin, it does look like spider web type of threads or cotton, or just like molds or fungus.
Fortunately I have a microscope at home and I was able to look at it using magnifications up to 1000x and it looks pretty interesting. The long stems divide in two, then each of them divide in two again and after a couple more divisions they end up with a bell-like bud. Under heavy magnification I could see that the buds have small "tenticles" (3 or 4 groups of about 3 in each). The most interesting thing is that the buds frequently contract rapidly. They stay in their normal shape but then rapidly contract as if they were irritated by something. Then they return to their normal shape. They do that in turn (not all at once) so they look independent.
I suspect that this beast is of Saprolegniaceae family, but I'm not sure. There seems to be no problem with fish (so far). But there are a lot of these things in the aquarium glass, rocks and plants.
I may suspect where it came from - a pet shop I bought my Barbs from. I wanted to buy some Neons but when a girl tried to catch some I noticed a dead fish floating in the tank and it was covered by a thick blanket of these (or similar) cotton-like threads. I refused to take the neons from that shop but asked for barbs form another tank that seemed OK (no dead fish was there). I suspect that all of their tanks are infected by the fungus (or whatever it is) and it got into my aquarium as well...
Does anyone have any clue what it could be, how bad it is, and how to get rid of it? Any suggestion is welcome.
Sorry for the long post...
There are some white spots on the glass of the aquarium and all over the tocks, plants, etc. These look like a tiny cottony trees, about 1-2 mm in size attached by the "tree roots" to the glass/rocks, etc and extending their "branches" upwards. They somehow look like hydras but much smaller and the stems are very thin, it does look like spider web type of threads or cotton, or just like molds or fungus.
Fortunately I have a microscope at home and I was able to look at it using magnifications up to 1000x and it looks pretty interesting. The long stems divide in two, then each of them divide in two again and after a couple more divisions they end up with a bell-like bud. Under heavy magnification I could see that the buds have small "tenticles" (3 or 4 groups of about 3 in each). The most interesting thing is that the buds frequently contract rapidly. They stay in their normal shape but then rapidly contract as if they were irritated by something. Then they return to their normal shape. They do that in turn (not all at once) so they look independent.
I suspect that this beast is of Saprolegniaceae family, but I'm not sure. There seems to be no problem with fish (so far). But there are a lot of these things in the aquarium glass, rocks and plants.
I may suspect where it came from - a pet shop I bought my Barbs from. I wanted to buy some Neons but when a girl tried to catch some I noticed a dead fish floating in the tank and it was covered by a thick blanket of these (or similar) cotton-like threads. I refused to take the neons from that shop but asked for barbs form another tank that seemed OK (no dead fish was there). I suspect that all of their tanks are infected by the fungus (or whatever it is) and it got into my aquarium as well...
Does anyone have any clue what it could be, how bad it is, and how to get rid of it? Any suggestion is welcome.
Sorry for the long post...
