# White fuzz on food in tank. Any suggestions



## lksdrinker (Feb 12, 2014)

how long is this food remaining in the tank?


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## miogpsrocks (Sep 3, 2015)

lksdrinker said:


> how long is this food remaining in the tank?


maybe 24 hours.


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## Griffith Sky-Treader (Jul 26, 2015)

It can either be a type of mould or in the zucchini's case, disintegration or mould too. Also, when feeding food, the item should be removed 2h(for fish food) and 3-4h(for veggies) if they are left _uneaten_. Otherwise you'll risk bacteria or virus infecting your shrimp and fish.


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## miogpsrocks (Sep 3, 2015)

Griffith Sky-Treader said:


> It can either be a type of mould or in the zucchini's case, disintegration or mould too. Also, when feeding food, the item should be removed 2h(for fish food) and 3-4h(for veggies) if they are left _uneaten_. Otherwise you'll risk bacteria or virus infecting your shrimp and fish.



So I have to clean the tank 2 hours after every feeding? 

Is this what you guys do to? 

I have had goldfish aquarium for yeras and I only clean the water maybe once a month/ 2 months. 

This is my first attempt with a planted tank and these type of livestock. 

sometimes I go on trips for weeks at a time and use an automated fish feeder. Are there any other options? Maybe more aggressive bottom feeder, maybe a type of snail that does not eat live plants, etc..? 

One thing that is different about this tank is that I only have biological filtration(Large sponge inside tank powered by air stone) and I don't have a normal HOB power filter since I heard it could suck in the Shrimp. Perhaps this is why this is happening? 

Maybe I should get a very small power filter with a prefilter sponge on the intake? 

Please give me some other options. I really can't clean the tank 3 times a day especially when I am away on trips. 

Thanks.


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## keymastr (May 25, 2015)

No, it is just new tank syndrome and will go away after a few weeks. However, you only need to feed as much as your fish will consume in a few minutes. Other than a piece of Zucchini stuck to a fork there should be no food in the tank for 24 hours. I leave the Zucchini for the Plecos overnight but one day is plenty.


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## hollo (Jun 14, 2014)

If you have moldy fish flakes/fish food you probably are putting too much in there. You really shouldn't need more food than your fish can eat within ten minutes.

With the zucchini i'd make smaller pieces and only leave it in overnight, and scoop it out the next morning. You could even limit it to only three times a week because your shrimp should get enough food picking at biofilm and decaying plant parts the rest of the days.

You don't have to do a deep clean, you just need to scoop out the zucchini or fish flakes that are left over.


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## Daisy Mae (Jun 21, 2015)

A small net or a turkey baster is really handy for pulling out uneaten food. I have used both and found the net is usually easier to use unless the tank is very shallow.


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## WaterLife (Jul 1, 2015)

It's just uneaten food growing mold (fungus?) on it. Means your are feeding to much for the amount that gets eaten. Most fish won't touch the food once it's rotten, unless they are starving, but shrimp and snails would still eat it (not their preference, but will). The uneaten food can pollute your water though, so just learn how much gets eaten and less the amount given so not so much uneaten food.


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## Oso Polar (Apr 22, 2015)

miogpsrocks said:


> I really can't clean the tank 3 times a day especially when I am away on trips.


There is no need to feed adult fish 3 times a day. :icon_surp
Also, there is no need to feed fish so much that food remains in the tank - everything should be eaten in a couple of minutes *tops*. Even this can be too much - depends on the fish and type of food. The only exception is zucchini and other vegetables, they can be left for several hours - not regular fish food. It looks like you are seriously, very, very seriously overfeeding your fish.


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## miogpsrocks (Sep 3, 2015)

Oso Polar said:


> There is no need to feed adult fish 3 times a day. :icon_surp
> Also, there is no need to feed fish so much that food remains in the tank - everything should be eaten in a couple of minutes *tops*. Even this can be too much - depends on the fish and type of food. The only exception is zucchini and other vegetables, they can be left for several hours - not regular fish food. It looks like you are seriously, very, very seriously overfeeding your fish.


How can I be overfeeding my fish when they don't eat anything? 

How much will they eat in the first 3 minutes? Zero. 

The food stays on top of the tank and the neon Tetra won't go to the surface. There has to be food falling right in front of the fish's mouth and it will eat a piece and spit it out. 

I am also taking a little flakes as possible when I am feeding them. 

New tank syndrome is for ammonia, nitrites, nitrates not fungus? 

I am wondering if I should run a UV sterilizer for a week in the tank maybe? 

I have a sponge filter design for a 125 gallon tank in a 55 gallon tank. It should provide the biological filtration needed and then some. 

I have also had 6 neon tetras die in the last week probably from starvation because I can't get them to eat.


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## hiimkari29 (Aug 23, 2015)

Have you tried other types of food? Like pellets or frozen?


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## Oso Polar (Apr 22, 2015)

miogpsrocks said:


> How can I be overfeeding my fish when they don't eat anything?
> 
> How much will they eat in the first 3 minutes? Zero.
> 
> The food stays on top of the tank and the neon Tetra won't go to the surface. There has to be food falling right in front of the fish's mouth and it will eat a piece and spit it out.


Try different type of food then, the one that sinks slowly. Something like Hikari Micro Pellets.



miogpsrocks said:


> I have also had 6 neon tetras die in the last week probably from starvation because I can't get them to eat.


This is possible if they didn't eat for really long time (weeks). Unfortunately, this may also mean that fish were sick (and this may also be the reason they don't eat well).


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## turbosaurus (Nov 19, 2005)

Its definitely fungus- and I agree with all of hte other commenters, you are definitely overfeeding. 

It may be a resonable amount that a healthy fish WOULD eat, but your fish aren't eating it, either way it doesn't matter, you are overfeeding - a lot. To oversimplify- Uneaten food kills fish. 

Adding more food is not the solution, it is actually doing more harm. Healthy fish will voraciously go after food. If they do not aggressively go after the food, it is becasue they are sick or your water quality is bad- adding more food is not the solution. Its not your food type, a healthy fish may spit out a new food type for the first day or two while they get used to it, but they will still go after it. 

Its very possible that overfeeding is resulting in poor water quality, making your fish feel sick, which is causing them not to eat. It seems like you are in a viscous cycle, fish won't eat, so you add more food, which makes water quality worse, fish feel worse, eat less, you feed more, etc etc. 


Do not feed more than once a day and you should never feed more than they eat.. Please test your ammonia and nitrates. If you have food growing fungus, fish not eating, new tank, all of these are classic signs of a cycling tank with ammonia problems.


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## miogpsrocks (Sep 3, 2015)

turbosaurus said:


> Its definitely fungus- and I agree with all of hte other commenters, you are definitely overfeeding.
> 
> It may be a resonable amount that a healthy fish WOULD eat, but your fish aren't eating it, either way it doesn't matter, you are overfeeding - a lot. To oversimplify- Uneaten food kills fish.
> 
> ...


I am not sure if you ever had Neon Tetra as the only fish in the tank but here is the deal. 

They refused to go to the surface to eat the food the way most fish do. They refuse to go to the gravel and eat the food the way some fish and bottom feeders do. 

They will only eat the food which falls in front of them in the MIDDLE of the tank. 

If I place food in the tank and make it sink, there is maybe 5-8 second window in which the food is falling to the bottom of the tank. 

I have a 55 gallon long take which has a lot of hiding places and rocks, plants. So the neon may not even see the food during that time period. 

If I place food into the tank and don't make it sink, they will not eat any food during the first 3 minutes because its still floating on the surface. The food takes forever to eventually sink. Sometimes I leave it over night and come back in the morning and the food is still on the surface. I don't have a power filter so maybe that is why. 

I am not sure if Beta mix with red cherry shrimp but maybe the solution would be to get a fish that can grab the food at the surface and make it fall for the other neon tetras fish.


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## lksdrinker (Feb 12, 2014)

miogpsrocks said:


> I am not sure if you ever had Neon Tetra as the only fish in the tank but here is the deal.
> 
> They refused to go to the surface to eat the food the way most fish do. They refuse to go to the gravel and eat the food the way some fish and bottom feeders do.
> 
> ...



I think you're worrying too much about the neons. They can be a challenge to keep (despite their reputation as an easy or beginner fish) and it seems to be even more challenging to get healthy stock. But, a hungry and healthy fish will eat if its hungry and might ignore food at other times. Chances are the neons are getting more than enough food which is why they dont seem to go for anything at the surface. Keep in mind that fish can go a lot longer than most people think without eating. If they were really that hungry they'd take food from anywhere in the tank. 

Bottom line is your putting too much food in the tank and leaving it in for too long. You should never be able to watch the food turn bad while it sits in your tank. I'd skip feeding for a couple of days and then see if they might be interested in taking food from the surface.


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## Maverick2015 (Aug 8, 2015)

My neons will go to the bottom and the top to get food. They don't always do this, but the fish will not starve themselves. I suspect in my case it is just that I have enough of them in there that a few are always hungry enough. Either that or they have learned where the food is. Of course they prefer the food that slowly makes its way down, but once I stopped flake food they learned fast enough to look elsewhere.


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## bobjohnson (Apr 26, 2013)

miogpsrocks said:


> How can I be overfeeding my fish when they don't eat anything?
> 
> How much will they eat in the first 3 minutes? Zero.
> 
> ...


If your fish dont want to eat, you are feeding them too much. I go away sometimes for 2+ weeks and nothing at all dies. 

You have to remember that in nature a fish is not going to be eating their fill 3 times a day. They might come across a bug that fell in the water every couple days, or find bits and pieces of something a bigger fish left behind, but they arent going to be eating regularly. There are some exceptions but these are mostly scavengers, and they should be getting along fine with the stuff that grows in your tank naturally.

Your tetras might have died for many reasons. They might be "bad" fish, especially if you got them at a local store. I find that any of the super common fish I get at the LFS have really, really bad survival rates. Mostly because theyre farmed, overstocked, moved around a lot, and really stressed already by the time you get them home. The last time I bought tetras, I put them into a tank that was already running for well over 2 years, including having other tetras, and 60% of them died within 2 days. The only fish I buy from the LFS now are fish which dont sell quickly, stuff that will be in stock for a few weeks so they have time to de-stress before I buy them. If I want popular fish, I go to a boutique store or buy from another enthusiast to make sure im not buying fish that will never survive.

What I would do right away is not feed them for a couple days. Youre clearly overfeeding if youre ending up with moldy food at the bottom of the tank. After a couple days, try feeding them a small, small amount of food. They should go straight at it as soon as they notice it. Then dont feed them for a couple more days. After that, start feeding them regularly once per day, always at the same time, and always only as much as they will eat in a minute or two. Start with less food and add more until you get better at judging how much is enough.

One thing someone told me, and it holds true for all fish that you have to feed in my experience, is that if your fish are not excited by you coming near the tank, you are feeding too much.


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## hellofishies (Jul 20, 2015)

miogpsrocks said:


> I am not sure if you ever had Neon Tetra as the only fish in the tank but here is the deal.
> 
> They refused to go to the surface to eat the food the way most fish do. They refuse to go to the gravel and eat the food the way some fish and bottom feeders do.
> 
> ...


Well at first mine were confused, but they eventually learned to go to the top to eat. And they would prefer the food in the middle of falling, rarely picked at the bottom. They were rather ravenous even with twice a day feeding. Like others said, you're probably feeding too often/too much, and they don't feel the need to go for it. Perhaps feeding smaller amounts or less often? Maybe their appetite at each feeding will improve.


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## miogpsrocks (Sep 3, 2015)

hellofishies said:


> Well at first mine were confused, but they eventually learned to go to the top to eat. And they would prefer the food in the middle of falling, rarely picked at the bottom. They were rather ravenous even with twice a day feeding. Like others said, you're probably feeding too often/too much, and they don't feel the need to go for it. Perhaps feeding smaller amounts or less often? Maybe their appetite at each feeding will improve.


They seem to be eating a little better now. Maybe it was the initial shock of being introduced into the tank. 

I have to crush the flacks then put them underwater for force them to sink right away and they will eat that a little bit but spitting it out less then they used to. 

I have found that certain products they don't like at all. 

I just purchased some Hikari micro pellets and I only feed them once with that but they seem to eat it. I am going to have to see if perhaps that is the food they like best. So far, that seems to be the winner. Perhaps the pet store or breeder feed them that same food.


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## WaterLife (Jul 1, 2015)

Yeah, newly introduced fish may not eat for the first few days. A healthy fish (diseased, injured or extremely stressed fish may starve to death) won't starve itself to death (MOST, some only eat Live food) so it will eventually eat any new food, just might take it a few days to get in it's head that, that, is it's new food. So pretty much, any food you can get them used to, just may take a while.

Still in general, even healthy cardinal tetras don't like to get food from the top (unless they have to compete with other fish, so they must go to the top for food or chance not getting any food).


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## Argus (May 22, 2013)

IME, fish become picky eaters when they are getting more than they need. Some fish book authors recommend not feeding the fish one day a week. I think you should try that and feed them much less during the other days.


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## hellofishies (Jul 20, 2015)

miogpsrocks said:


> They seem to be eating a little better now. Maybe it was the initial shock of being introduced into the tank.
> 
> I have to crush the flacks then put them underwater for force them to sink right away and they will eat that a little bit but spitting it out less then they used to.
> 
> ...


Good to hear they are eating better  hikari is good stuff.


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## Maverick2015 (Aug 8, 2015)

Yeah, hikari is good.


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## miogpsrocks (Sep 3, 2015)

WaterLife said:


> Yeah, newly introduced fish may not eat for the first few days. A healthy fish (diseased, injured or extremely stressed fish may starve to death) won't starve itself to death (MOST, some only eat Live food) so it will eventually eat any new food, just might take it a few days to get in it's head that, that, is it's new food. So pretty much, any food you can get them used to, just may take a while.
> 
> Still in general, even healthy cardinal tetras don't like to get food from the top (unless they have to compete with other fish, so they must go to the top for food or chance not getting any food).


They eat the Hikari micro pellets a lot more aggressive then any other food that I have tried. One fish(out of about 20 of them) even darted to the top, grabbed a pellet and darted back down faster then I have ever seen one of these fish swim. It must be in their nature that going to the surface is dangerous for them or something. 

The Hikari micro pellets actually have a picture of the neon tetras right on the packaging so perhaps this is a favorite for that type of fish. 

I also purchased micro pellets from another company but have not tried them yet. 

Working with pellets are usually easier for the automated fish feeders so this is good.


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## WaterLife (Jul 1, 2015)

Yeah foods' ingredients can get pretty in-depth so I won't go through all of that on this thread. *side note, sorry to say, but if you know how to read ingredients properly, you would know Hikari is pretty much just more expensive lower quality food in fancy packaging. Also lower quality fish foods tend to use attractants, so they are just like human junk food, they taste good, but aren't really good for you. It's fine to get whatever the fish like though. But in short, if you do want the best available for fish, New Life Spectrum is one of the best, and Omega One is alright.

I believe it also is in their neon tetras nature to stay lower, they occupy lower regions of the tank like how they do in the wild. They are a dither fish, but they do pick at stuff lower in the water column, not really going up to the surface like other fish to catch insects and stuff.

The picture of the neons on the food label is just a picture though haha, just a food commonly fed to those types of fish just to give people an idea, what kind of fish eats that (can just be marketing purposes).


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## miogpsrocks (Sep 3, 2015)

WaterLife said:


> Yeah foods' ingredients can get pretty in-depth so I won't go through all of that on this thread. *side note, sorry to say, but if you know how to read ingredients properly, you would know Hikari is pretty much just more expensive lower quality food in fancy packaging. Also lower quality fish foods tend to use attractants, so they are just like human junk food, they taste good, but aren't really good for you. It's fine to get whatever the fish like though. But in short, if you do want the best available for fish, New Life Spectrum is one of the best, and Omega One is alright.
> 
> I believe it also is in their neon tetras nature to stay lower, they occupy lower regions of the tank like how they do in the wild. They are a dither fish, but they do pick at stuff lower in the water column, not really going up to the surface like other fish to catch insects and stuff.
> 
> The picture of the neons on the food label is just a picture though haha, just a food commonly fed to those types of fish just to give people an idea, what kind of fish eats that (can just be marketing purposes).


Yeah, there are I think 4 neon of the cover and 2 other fish. 
So New Life Spectrum and Omega One are both better than Hikari ?

I tried Tetra betta flakes, tropical flakes, some kind of small sinking granular food (not pellet). 
I think Petco carries Omega One. I know that they so far they don't like the tetras products which is ironic since they are neon tetras. 

Thanks


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