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Here one for the biologists and bio-chemists among you.

Ok this is a bit of fish nerd -ism, but by and large im clear on water chemistry and properties, and I know a fair bit about fish, and generally most things biological, but there is something I dont have an explanation for.

When you put a rubber sucker on a tank , what is the white gunk that forms inside the back of the suction cup? Its not visible on any other part of plant decoration , and we arent talking saltwater here. Now think about this for a minute, cos it aint that easy. This stuff can form in 3 days and fill the small space left in the cup. It grows under pressure, but is too capacious to be something as simple as settled calcites. Theres not necessarily any light available, so it cant be algae. The suction from the cup presumably blocks gaseous exchange of any significance, or the pressure would drop and the cup fail to adhere. So if it is bacteria, how is it respiring without available oxgen?

The pressure because of the suction has to be less than normal water pressure and higher than that of air, the torsion provided by the structure of the cup could raise the pressure way above normal atmospheric pressure,so if it is a bacteria it either has to be tough as old boots or used to exploiting a series of conditions I would have thought unusual. If its purely a chemical reaction with the rubber and the trace water, why does the rubber not diminish more quickly, and why does the result look so organic?

Then theres a few questions that will do your brain cells in even more. If it gets to every tank , and it does certainly seem to get there, how is it getting there, and if its omnipresent how does it cope with the changes in pressure from the period it is an ambient bacteria to its final resting place, and what is the advantage of choosing such a difficult place in which to live on such a small amount of nutriment and available gas?

Is it harmful in any way? There are mystery ailments sooner or later in almost any tank, could this be a possible cause?

Ok im not thinking it causes too many problems but I can explain the mechanics of the chemistry about just about anything you get in a fishtank, apart from this. What the hell is it, whats it for, and what does it do? I guess I could throw it at the new scientist type folks , but I thought perhaps someone here may have the answers. If nothing else itll have cal up all night.

Big questions on a little bit of white gunk that everyone has!



...and i will take the severe michael out of the first person who says its fish poo.

hey,im by no means a bio chemist or whateva,but i asked this question a few years ago at my LFS,and i got told it was from the rubber suckers being new,and that the white stuff is harmless to fish,they did say what it was called but i cant rememberhope this helps.

Nice try, and thanks for the go at it, but some of these suckers are all ages. some must be up to 5 years old. I assume its gotta be a bacteria,but I cant for the life of me figure out how it works. I used to think it was just stuff from the rubber too, but i keep cleaning it off, and with the older ones I mustve cleaned more of it off than their entire density by several times. It is most confusing.

Hi,
I too have always thought it was a form of bacteria.
Take a sample, prepare it, and look at it under
a microscope. If you have a friend in college give the
slide to them and see if they cant categorize it. Once
it is "named" you can look it up to see what it lives on
and how it lives.

Frank

-->>> The Confidence of Amateurs, is the Envy of Professionals <<<--

mmmmm,ok,but at least its harmless.ive had it b4 in a few diferent tanks and it never hurt anything,it just more unsightly than anything i rekon

It is almost certainly some sort of anaerobic prokaryotic growth.

Nice one cupoflifenoodles, that gave me a clue as to where to start looking.

Apparently youre on the money, it would appear to be as you stated a prokaryotic bacteria , capable of quickly replicating dna, and respiring through methane,presumably a by product of anerobic bacterial decomposition from detritus in the water.

Its a known family of bacteria dating back to the beginnings of life on earth and over the millenia has given rise to viruses and bacteria and even created environments that fungi can inhabit, including strains of saprolegnia. Its more common in marine environments, and is an extremophile bacteria that is basically managing to live as a colony organism in symbiosis with other decompositional bacteria. It apparently is one of the bacterial groups that helped to make the planet more conducive to more complex forms of life. It seems there has actually been a hell of a lot of research done on it, and some universities monitor it regularly in attempts to monitor environmental pressures in freshwater and marine environments. I am still amazed by its its ability to trancend difficult conditions, but then I expect the DNA structure of something that has survived since the dawn of life on this planet to be extremely durable and adaptable.

Heres to the amazing white goo Its one of the organsisms that allows aerobic bacteria in our filters to function, and like many things in nature has the potential to damage as much as it does to help. Its appearance is normal, but too much of it may indicate an unhealthy system, since an environment enjoyed by an extremophile bacteria wouldnt be suitable for fish. Obviously it can only occur in such concentration as to be visible actually behind the suction cup, a microenvironment in itself, and not in the main body of water in any concentration.

Mostly harmless in the same way that the hitchhikers guide to the galaxy decribes planet earth itself. I think ill keep cleaning it off to lower the risks of mutation and possible harmful strains.Its existence has helped thousands of strains of virus to come into being.

Still, it is interesting to know that such a fundamental building block of life is still present in a modern form in our humble fishtanks ! Representatives of this form of bacteria can be found on deep sea vents, and are infact a lynchpin of entire ecosystems that are not dependant on the sun for energy, I had no idea that checking out a little white goo would lead me to such a fundamental understanding of relationships between promordial evolutionary situations and the world we ourselves inhabit.Im also not alone in not understanding its motility though, most scientists dont even know how it gets from deep sea vent to deep sea vent let alone transgresses oxygen rich environments to get into the humble fishtank. Nice to know im not the only one confused!

Im like ... "whooaaaaa"

Thanks all for helping me get to the answer! Much appreciated.

I hope other people gave you the answer you need. Pointless questions are usually a specialty of mine but that one had me stumped. perhaps I am au fait with a different subcategory of utterly pointless.

Exhibit a;
My team won over $200 at pub trivia because I knew a bonobo was a pygmy chimp

*shrug*

~end~

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
~~~ My fish blow kisses at me all day long ~~~

Not anymore Wish-ga. I'm afraid Bonobo's are now considered an entirely separate species to the Chimpanzee, as different to them as we are.

Maybe I need to go register with monkeyprofiles.com

You and I both know it is a different species but it was the answer they were looking for... give 'em what they want and win the dough. Sounds good to me

like the monkeyprofiles.com quip though.
Monkeyboy is the president of the Michigan chapter... ask him about setting one up in your area.

Pub trivia last night... team came third out of about 20 teams. Not too bad.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
~~~ My fish blow kisses at me all day long ~~~

Im not quite sure how they got the name "pygmy" , a big male at twycross zoo stood up against the glass next to me and while he wasnt taller than me , he was a lot wider.

The big difference you tend to spot with them when you see them in the flesh is the sheer intelligence. One tried to trade a red woolly jumper for a bottle of tropicana, ( i felt really guilty we couldnt trade) but obviously plexiglass stopped any direct interaction, and I saw another binobo untie a knot made in six 30ft long firemans hosepipes suspended from the ceiling in about 5 seconds flat. It probably would have taken me over a minute to work that enormous knot out, let alone actually untie it while swinging from one arm! Amazing creatures, but the easily shocked among you never ever want to read about their sex lives! Its quite foul really...