crw.npt

hoping someone could give me some advice. I just set up a 5.5g tank about a week ago and im noticing an opaque slime on everything. plants, wood, substrate, even the intake for the filter. any clues?? i will be honest and admit that while i was setting it up i was interrupted for about an hour and some of the plants dried up a bit. would that have anything to do with it. any help would be great.

Tex Gal

It sounds like diatoms. It will go away. Do water changes and try to suck it out. It most usually happens with new tanks.

trenac

When you say slime I think of blue green algae or Cyno bacteria. But it could be diatoms as Tex Gal says. If it is brown then it is diatoms, if green (sometimes red) then it is cyno. Here are some sites for ID... http://www.aquariumalgae.blogspot.com/ or http://www.floridadriftwood.com/alga...ification.html

Diatoms will go away in time but cyno will need to be treated with E-mycin or a blackout. See this site for instructions... http://www.aquariaplants.com/alqaeproblems.htm

The plants that dried out will most then likely loose their leaves, so keep a watch out on that. Remove any leaves that start dieing, just cut or pinch off. As long as the root systems where not damaged then the plants will be fine & new leaves will regrow.

crw.npt

thanks for that guys. i did a water change and sucked most of it out. it was kind of brown but mostly clearish. i have been keeping an eye on the plants because some of them have been losing leaves so ill just keep an eye on the whole thing. the slimey stuff that i couldn't get out hasn't gotten any worse or bigger so i guess not to worry. Thanks again for the input.