# What is this?



## Ravaillac (Mar 13, 2013)

It's driving me crazy and is now on every single plant in my tank. It has even covered my indian almond leaves. It is white and fluffy. I cannot wipe it off, it simply stays put. At first I thought it was a fungus like what you often get on new mopani wood, because I can no longer leave veggies in my tank for my otos- the veggies get covered in fungus within hours. I've been using Kordon's herbal Ick Attack to try and get rid of it for three days now. But the stuff on my plants looks a bit different than fungus. All of my plants are healthy, no decaying matter. No food gets left on my substrate longer than a few hours. I'm wonder if it might be an algae, because parts are starting to get stringy.



















I'd sure appreciate your help!

BTW, the feathery looking stuff in the upper left hand corner of the first picture is a frogbit root covered in this stuff.


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## Yo-han (Oct 15, 2010)

Ick is a parasite, so any medication against Ick will only kill parasites, no fungus or algae, so you can stop using that.

About your problem, to me it appears more like short hair algae. Those can be greywhite to green, but fungus covering healthy plants is not common. Maybe increase you CO2 a little bit and add some amano shrimps would help.


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## Ravaillac (Mar 13, 2013)

I got the Ich Attack because it's supposed to be the same thing as Rid Fungus. But even considering that it is supposed to be a slow acting product, it hasn't done anything. I'm glad to hear you think it's hair algae- I certainly like that idea better than fungus- ugh! It is a grey-white color. Strange thing is, when it first showed up, it was on my java fern, on top of the BBA that came in on the plant. All of a sudden, the BBA got whitish and fuzzy stuff on it. BBA is gone now, but my tank is overrun with the other stuff.

The Amano shrimps are a good idea, but unfortunately I'm pretty much at my max bioload. And three of the residents are otos, so there wouldn't be enough algae for all in my 10 gallon. It is an NPT, so I won't be injecting CO2. But I just got some Excel and will be trying that. I've noticed my swords are turning yellow too, so I just started adding iron. Hopefully those additions will fix the imbalance in my tank.


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## Yo-han (Oct 15, 2010)

I doubt any anti-ick will kill fungus, unless your lfs thinks ick is a fungus or it is a multi-action medication. The white hairs on the frogbite are tine hairlike roots. What I can see in the pictures on your plants is not that bad. About your max bioload, shrimp won't add much to that IMO and if there is not enough algae you can always suplement them some from time to time.


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