white stuff and Ph.

[tims]

hi everyone,
question for you all .. it has me stumpped!.
while helping oout at the LFS yesterday a women came in wanting to set upo a tank( FW) for her son.. just a 10 gallon..here's the problem.. she already has a 20g going, mix of fish. danio's and a at least one chiclid..her Ph is at 5.0, and she has a long white strands( kinda like algae in the tank..) she has no amm. level at all, the water brought from the tank read 5.5 Ph. that was aftera 50% WC.. she has tried all the diff. ph raiser. and buffers and nothing has helped..
she is using tap water at pH 7.5.. but once in the tank it lowers to below 6.0 with in a few days!..she is getting a hard white crust onthe filter in take and around the glass from time to time...i did not check for hardness or softness of the water.. ( not enough brought in to test)
she has regular gravel for the bottom and a few plastic plants and one piece of slte in the tank for when she had angles.. ( also when she looked at her neighbors tank , they too have the same low pH and white alage type stuff)
any idea's?

[Stang69]

For the ph problem I would say there is a build up of excess gunk in the gravel that needs to be vac'd out. Hmmmmmmmmmmm read further about the neighbor also hmmmmmmm rackin my brain now. I would say the white crust is from hard water and a high calcium lvl but beyond that I will tag along and see what ya come up with



Jeff

[OodleyBoodely]

Might be a fungus. I know what you're discribing-I've seen in fw tanks, too, but I am not sure what it is. You might suggest treating the tank with a medication specifically for true fungus and see if that works.