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I have a 65 gal, Top Fin system with Dual Bio Wheel/Strong Filtration system. I also have one,male, Red Tiger Oscar who is named "Oscar". He is about 7 inches long now and I have had him in the same tank since he was 1.5 inches (a baby baby,lol). He is the only fish in this tank. As far as decorations, I have one medium sized cave and a medium sized "skull" of a animal. I use to have a few plants (3 total) but as Oscar grew, he would uproot the plants (which I knew would happen, not a big deal), so now there is none.

The water is tested weekly & he gets regular water changes and I always clean the inside glass of the tank when I do water changes. The temp is about 78 degrees and Oscar is doing just fine. My question is.........I have been noticing some kind of growth on the glass of the tank. I mean, at first, I thought it was simply Algae and I have been treating the water with AlgaeFix by Aquarium Pharmaceuticals,Inc. which works WONDERS on all of my other tanks, whenever I have an algae issue in them. Well, this stuff/growth (to me) doesn`t seem like algae. What I mean is, it is a real light color, almost white dot - ish, on the glass. Not Ich - Oscar has no signs of any diseases. It does start to grow and it almost looks like spider webs (if you will) inside the tank on the glass. I`m wondering, could this be some form of water mold or something? I have to clean the inside of the glass almost everyday - if not, definately every other day.

What in the world is it?? None of my other tanks have this or ever had. Infact, this is the 1st time I have ever seen anythinglike this and I have been "in fish/aquariums" since I was 12 and I am 34 now, you know what I mean. Anyways, ANY information would REALLY be appreciated!! Thank you, ahead of time, to all those that reply.

Sounds alot like hair algae. Usually theres multiple ways to cure this. First, is adding plants to take nutrients of of the water which supplies the growth of the hair algae. Another way, is cut back on lighting, and physically remove algae. Third, is doing a strip down, usually the one you dont want to do.

I know theres other ways, you might want to make a post in the planted aquaria about this, or just read other users posts.

Im no expert on hair algae, but I believe the above methods are usually the ones used.

Edit: http://www.thekrib.com/Plants/Algae/hair-algae.html#0

take a look at that

Last edited by inkodinkomalinko at 21-Oct-2004 23:04

Actually, the more I read on Hair Algae, the more I don`t think I have it. It says that Hair Algae is green to light green in color. Mine is white - never turns green though.

Could it be staghorn algae?

I've had the web stuff in one of my tanks, but I had a LOT of light and I think it was just from that. I tore down the tank to get rid of it (and it needed to be torn down anyway because I wanted to move it and it had Blue-Green, thread, and several other types of nasty algaes).

When something in the tank goes wrong, there's usually a good reason for it. Algae takes over when something isn't right. If you leave your lights on 24/7, there's enough light for algae to use but nothing else is using it (constant light will kill plants anyway), algae will take over. If there are way too many nutrients algae uses them. If there is excess CO2, algae will use it. If phosphate levels are too high, algae uses it.
You'll need to get to the root of the problem to solve it. Try various things like less light, less food, phosphate absorbers, etc.

HTH

Actually no, it is not algae at all. It is a single celled micro organism related to the hydra. It is common in well balanced healthy tanks. In fact, if your tank had any problems, it probably wouldnt grow. It is feeding off of micro nutrients in the water itself. It is not a hazard, nor dangerous. Just wash it off the front glass and it will be fine to grow on everything else.
I used to have it, but as my number of live plants went up, it died off, cuz the plants are using up all the nutrients it had before.
Dont worry, its a good thing and a good sign. I wouldnt fret about it.


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...this is off topic, but doesnt it seem like about 50% of oscars are named "oscar" hahaha

a friend of mine had an oscar named oscar for a really long time. that thing was crazy.