A friend's new 20 long is really messed up and she's new to the hobby and can't get the tank straightened out so I offered to bring it home to get it cleaned up and properly cycled, then take it back to her. She started out with too many fish and her ammonia shot off the charts. She's lost numerous fish and the remaining fish looked none too good. I've taken the fish and farmed them out between a few of my existing tanks so I guess that is about all I can do for them for now.
The tank seemed perpetually dirty with detritus, even though she vacuums, so I just broke down the tank and I planned to clean the substrate by hand in my sink. But right away, when cleaning the first handful, I noticed a very thick substance in the water that feels and looks like oil of some kind. You can even see it. If you stick your hand in the water for even a second, it is covered in this oily substance. It rinses off my hand fairly easily, and then my hand feels very soft like I've just used a really high quality lotion, and lots of it.
What the heck could this be? I thought maybe she had lotion on her hands and put them in the tank, but there is SO much of this stuff settled into the substrate, it just can't be that. The only extracurricular substance she added to the water was bacteria to help rapid-cycle the tank, but it was straight out of the purchased container. I've never seen such a thing and I can't imagine what it may be!
Zambize
Thick oily substance in tank!
4 posts
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Tmercier834747 - Posts: 887
- Joined: Wed Feb 13, 2008 8:33 pm
what sort of substrate is it? I know some websites recommend silicate sand (many with the stipulation that thorough rinsing is required before use in aquaria) which I went to home depot to inquire about and was abruptly advised against it because of possible oils contained in it.
The guy I had asked about it actually said he had started using it in his 90gal after some heavy rinsing and after filling the tank saw a thick oily layer on the surface of the water, he quickly emptied the whole tank, washed it down and went back to something else.
That was about all the motivation I needed to get playsand instead.
The guy I had asked about it actually said he had started using it in his 90gal after some heavy rinsing and after filling the tank saw a thick oily layer on the surface of the water, he quickly emptied the whole tank, washed it down and went back to something else.
That was about all the motivation I needed to get playsand instead.
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zambize - Posts: 401
- Joined: Mon Feb 25, 2008 9:14 pm
The substrate was the commonly used Flourite, for planted tanks. And this oily substance sinks to the bottom. We determined that it is something in the substrate because she used the same bag of substrate between two tanks, and both tanks are having the problem. The second tank less so, but she used less of this substrate in the second tank. I've used Flourite before and have never seen this substance in it before. It seems like the substrate was somehow contaminated. Seems unlikely but I can't come up with anything else.
Z
Z
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Tmercier834747 - Posts: 887
- Joined: Wed Feb 13, 2008 8:33 pm
If thats the case one of you should probably contact seachem. I've used several kinds of flourite in -all- my tanks and never had a problem.