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Strange white dots (fungi ?) on the wood, any advice ?

alnitak

Member
Joined
9 Feb 2022
Messages
130
Location
France - Essonne
Hi all !

Since the dark start period of my tank, and after a classical wide spread of white slime on the wood that disappeared quickly as I introduced snails, i noticed some white dots developping on the wood. I first thought it was oxygen bubbles on the wood, but no, they are solid. They are easy to wipe with a toothbrush, but are back rather quickly (within one week).
Did you ever see that kid of dots ? (they are not snail eggs). Is it a kind of fungus ? And maybe some advice to get rid of it ?

Thank you in advance for yor kind help ! :)

Parameters of the tank, and history there

Picture of the aliens:

20220504_234322.jpg
 
Hello, I've had snail eggs in other tanks (nerites, clithons etc..) but they are quite different. Snail eggs are located evrywhere, on plants, rocks, wood, and even glass. These are only "growing" on the wood, not on plants, soil, rocks.
Do you have a picture of the "eggs" you have in your tank ?
 
I'm afraid that your wood has the pox. Ring a bell and paint an x on the door.
Alternatively, they could just be the primordia of saprophytic fungi.
This is usually a good sign that you have a healthy aquarium and other members have mentioned their potential benefits.
Even a broody nerite would have a job getting those many eggs layed, and most snails prefer plants or somewhere near the surface to reenergise themselves with oxygen along the way.

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Hi !

Ring a bell and paint an x on the door.
OK, done... :)

So maybe these are appearing in a sort of decomposition phase of the wood surface ? It did not disappear quickly as the other white stuff did. It seems that the snails do not eat it, maybe the amano shrimps and fish will do (but i'm currently waiting 2 or 3 more weeks to move them into the tank)

This is usually a good sign that you have a healthy aquarium
May the tank manitou hear you and put a spell to stop melting my in vitro plants :)
 
They are taking nutrients from deep within the wood - the whole thing is full of mycorrhizal web fungi - it's practically alive. I have even seen some identical growth in fallen decomposing sticks where it literally glowed in the dark due to bioluminescence. What usually happens is that the bacteria take the sugars with the highest energy conversion, so they consume the smaller hydrocarbons first. When they start to run out, they themselves die out as they either get consumed or run out of nutrients. Then the fungi take over, they are surprisingly well adapted to consume longer-chained molecules like oils and aromatic hydrocarbons (that is what we are seeing here). Eventually specialist decomposers take over and are able to consume lignin and cellulose given enough time, but you wont see that for decades.
 
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