Something strange in my tank please help.

[mb5322]

There is something strange in my tank and I have no clue what it is. It appears to be a white filmy substance, that almost looks like cloudy cellophane. There is quite alot of it that is floating around the tank, and since these things have appeared my fish appear to have white spots on them. It doesn't look like ich at all, it almost looks like sawdust on them. If anyone has any idea what this is and how to treat it, I would like to take care of this as soon as possible, this film just appeared within the last two days.

[slandis3]

you could try a fresh water dip. see if that gets it off the fish

[mb5322]

you could try a fresh water dip. see if that gets it off the fish

but what about the other wasps of the milky cellophane looking stuff floating around the tank?

[Joel]

The stuff floating around in the water fitting that discription could be a couple things. Do you have a lion fish? When they are irritated, typically from parasites, they will sloth off excess mucus coating in an attempt to rid them selves of the parasite. it will almost look like they shed their skin.

Do you have any toadstool corals? They often do the same thing, sloth off excess mucus. It to will float around the tank when they release it.

If your fish are experiencing a parasite out break, most likly what you are seeing is related to that. As per what type of parasite your fish have (there is no such thing as Ich in salt water) it for the most part doesn't matter. The commonly encountered types of parasites are all susseptable to the commonly used treatments. Lower salinity (hypo saline) , freshwater dips & copper treatments are all commonly used methods that work very well. If you are unable to employ these types of treatments with your aquarium, large U.V. sterilizers and even better an ozone generator / controller would help solve the problem

Hope this helps...

Joel