Tank has cleared but....

[eric]

Okay... There appears to be something growing in my tank. There are little yellowish green clusters of bubbles that are clinging to the sides of the glass near the top of the tank. There is also some weird looking...ah, flakes, streamers, crud... not sure what to call it floating around. The water smells funky too. Should I get rid of the water and start over? Or is this part of cycling?

 

[eric]

I've looked at this stuff further. The bubbles are actually some sort of growth. I scrapped them off the sides of the tank as much as I could. I also checked the filters in the Penguin and they were caked with this stuff - but it's new because they were clean when I started the filter. The only thing I can guess, since I cleaned the tank twice before filling it up is that the bio wheels of the penguin still had bacteria in them from when the previous owner used them. Since I haven't added anything to start the bacteria cycle yet.... I really don't know what to do. Any suggestions on what is going on?

 

[hayley-jane]

I have no idea what that stuff is.

I think I would personally give the tank a good scrubbing and then start over.

Do you have any pictures of the stuff?

 

[jennifer]

Were you putting some kind of food in the water to accelerate the cycling? Maybe you put in too much? If it was just water, it's hard to imagine why it would smell bad or have crud like that. I don't think you could get enough bacteria or dirt from a used filter to cause a serious problem.

 

[eric]

I don't know.... everything was cleaned thoroughly except the filter. But I think I will do as haley suggests and start over. Maybe because I let the water sit for 3 days without the filter on something started to stagnate. Oh well..... at least I don't have any critters to kill.