# Strings in my fish tank?



## fisherman (Apr 22, 2010)

Ok so there always seems to be this stringy thing in my fish tank, hanging off my plants and appears usualy after a water change..

I thought it would be string algae since i had it befor... but why is it appearing after a water change? is it even string algae? i didnt have string algae befor i did the water change... the last water change befor this one had alot more hair algae right after w/c.. this time not as much hair. i am just confused.. hair algae is suposed to appear when high in nitrates if i remember correctly, but i've just lowered the nitrate and it appears.. anyone know whats wrong? does this have anything to do with the death of one of my new angle fish?


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## Diztrbd1 (Apr 21, 2010)

a pic of it might help to diagnose


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## CRS Fan (Apr 21, 2010)

Are the 'strings' whitish/grey in colour, and do they attach to any surface? If so it may be a rogue bacterial bloom like this.










If you you will need to reset your biological filter.

Best Regards,

Stuart


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## fisherman (Apr 22, 2010)

That pic looks more like fluff.. The strings in my tank looks alot like cat hair but prob longer.. Strings are gone now so i dont think i can get a pic, they usualy flow with the water flow..


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## ~Lynae (Apr 21, 2010)

Did you recently put anything new into your tank? 
I had the same weird thing happen to me when I put oak leaves in my tank cause I wanted darker water. It was a few years ago but I remember strings everywhere in that tank, til I took them out.. 
Something to consider!


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## fisherman (Apr 22, 2010)

~Lynae said:


> Did you recently put anything new into your tank?
> I had the same weird thing happen to me when I put oak leaves in my tank cause I wanted darker water. It was a few years ago but I remember strings everywhere in that tank, til I took them out..
> Something to consider!


The only new thing i put in there was probably a month or 2 ago and would be a big peice of malaysian wood..

Today i was attaching some anubias to the big peice of wood in my tank and decided since that big peice of wood is out of the way, i may as well give the substrate a whirl, then poop and stuff goes flying everywhere.. It was kind of like a storm.. Then 5 minutes later i get this









I am going to have to admit, I did have about 3 inches of gravel near the back of the tank and barely ever moved it... and i couldnt realy gravel vac under that peice of wood cause i didnt want to move it

So maybe the gas pockets in the gravel caused a nitrate spike which caused hair algae? can someone also confirm if this is hair algae or not?


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## ~Lynae (Apr 21, 2010)

Its not hair algae. Probably the combination of that little stagnant pocket and also adding the big chunk of malaysian wood helped cause it. When I added a little piece of that wood there was lots of weird fuzzies around it for a while. 
I just suggest lots of vacuuming and fresh water, it helps more things than we think!


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## Crazy_NDN (Apr 21, 2010)

x2 on the gravel vac, and fresh water.


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