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Substance ID: Growing on Suction Cups

It's always good to be careful. The story about the orange stuff sounds awful but the stuff on the pictures above should be harmless. I've seen it in my tanks many times after setup, possibly new equipment and suction cups as suggested above? Just clean the suction cups under running warm water till it stops appearing. I don't think I had to clean it more than once, or at least I didn't bother and it must have gone away itself, or the fish ate it.
 
mark4785 said:
Yes, it's not new to me either. I was just very scared that it was the recurrence of the previous growth that I had in the aquarium which was impossible to get rid of up until I chucked 4-5kg of salt in and 25ml of bleach. It was a dark orange skin particle that stuck to the glass, filter media, filtration unit walls, walls of the pipes etc. It also came to the surface and resembled a white film with bubbles in it. The water had no oxygen in it; fish would die 5 minutes after introduction.

I was just terrified that it was the above growing on the suction cups. I hate not knowing where from and how things come to fruition.
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Its exactly the same stuff, just not leeching from your sand in copious amounts.
 
Well I have some bad news. The orange slime is back again but there isn't as much of it. The UV filter seems to be keeping it from flourishing. Here's a few pictures showing where it is growing:


Yellow/orange slime in the pipework
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Orange slime deposited in bucket

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Slime deposits in the sink (after having cleaned the suction cups)

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Is this harmless? It seems to be spreading a bit too much for my liking.
 
I cleaned my pipes and lily today for the first time since putting them on, after putting the brush through them they were full of what looked like fat. Like mentioned I only seem to get this with new soft plastic which goes away and get replaced with the usual brown gunge when they've been in a bit.
 
BigTom said:
Is your tank planted yet Mark? Can't help but think that getting a bunch of well established plants going and your tank matured and stable is the easiest way of avoiding this kind of thing.
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It isn't yet. I'm doing a fishless cycle on it beforehand as I'll be adding sensitive stock (Microgeophagus Ramirezi). I've had the stuff in the pictures grow after and before cycling and with and without plants.It was only a couple of months ago that I threw away over £50 of plants because of the same problem.

I'm starting to think the aquarium is built of dodgy stuff (it wasn't quality assured as it was custom-made by a LFS rather than a big company like Juwel or Ferplast) that is causing this orange slime to grow OR something in the air is entering the tank due to it being open-topped.

I'll be testing the oxygen level of the water tomorrow. If it's 2 mg/L as it has been in the past when this slime has been growing (the 2 mg/L of O2 killed 3 black neon tetras I placed in the tank) I think I will have no option but to sell everything a part from the aquarium stand.
 
AverageWhiteBloke said:
I cleaned my pipes and lily today for the first time since putting them on, after putting the brush through them they were full of what looked like fat. Like mentioned I only seem to get this with new soft plastic which goes away and get replaced with the usual brown gunge when they've been in a bit.
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Did you experience low O2 levels and fish death with this? The slime I have kills fish. Nobody knows what it is.
 
I don't have any way of testing oxygen levels but lost no shrimp over it.
 
sciencefiction said:
Have you experienced that with a different tank or just this tank?
Have you tested the water for let's say iron maybe(only because it's orange and I couldn't think of anything else 🙂 )
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No, I've only experienced it with this aquarium.
I have a Seachem Iron test which I could use to test for iron but I don't think it's an iron residue as the same dechlorinated tap water is used in my pond and other aquarium and they are spotless with respect to this orange substance and their oxygen levels are fine.
 
sciencefiction said:
Maybe the LFS making the tank didn't use aquarium safe silicone 🙂
What else is in the tank that is different than your others?
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There's nothing in the aquarium. It's completely empty a part from the water, suction cups and inlet/outlet pipes. The filter contains ceramic rings for biological filtration and filtration sponges to collect waste.

The only reason the filtration system isn't choked up is because a 9w UV is running within the external filter so the gunk you see in the pipe work (see above) gets destroyed.
 
How are you testing for o2? How reliable is the test?
 
AverageWhiteBloke said:
How are you testing for o2? How reliable is the test?
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Its a Tetra O2 testing kit; nothing fancy. While its probably not extremely accurate it did tell me there was under 2 mg/L of o2 in the water when my Tetras died from oxygen starvation.

I did the o2 test and the result was 4 mg/L which is a good result. But having took another look at the extent of the gunk stuck to the inner walls of the transparent inlet/outlet pipe and the fact that it is the exact same gunk that eventually deprived the water of oxygen only a matter of months ago, I've now firmly decided to get rid of the tank, filtration system, heater, light and anything else that has come into contact with the tank. There is around £650-700 worth of equipment that will probably go for under half of that value given it's history.

Thanks for everybody's support on this issue; it was much appreciated however there's only so much a person can take before feeling a strong urge to move onto a new chapter.


Mark.
 
I think your reaction to this slime is a bit strong. Have you tried chucking in some cheap hornwort or something? People seem to get weird algae during fishless cycles. I'm convinced it has something to do with the raw ammonia. Theres more to a biological system than just ammonia.
 
I would also agree with that. Until a tank is biologically sound there are a few strange growths. I had a search today to see if I could help you at all but couldn't come up with anything like you're describing. Having said that, I've been keeping fish tanks for over 20 years and I've never came across anything like I have just cleaned out of my shrimp tank. It could only be described as what fat looks like in a waste pipe. I have confidence it will go away as the new filter matures. I would get some fast growing cheap plants like vallis or hygropholia and bang a load in see how it pans out. Without fish you have absolutely nothing to lose. If the situation improves you van start replacing them with the plants you really want.
 
Just wondering, some of the people who use this board have access to some fancy equipment that they work with well beyond the realms of our bank accounts 🙂 Possibly ask them nicely if you could post them a sample of this stuff and see if any of their equipment could analyse it.
 
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