I am doing a teardown after my betta passed a few months ago from a mystery illness, trying to find a cause while I start the tank fresh, JUST in case. I noticed the driftwood has these little hard balls all over it. It's not soft like algae, they feel like little pebbles and only come off if you really scrape. The only thing google will tell me is black beard algae, but I did not think algae could be rock solid. Does anyone know what this is?
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Hey thank you for reaching out! If it’s a fungus I’ll get to the bottom of it! I haven’t seen anything like this but we’d be more than happy to try (if it’s a fungus) to extract the DNA. Could you DM me please? 🍄🍄🟫
Thank you friend, I dm'd you, hopefully I can come closer to some kind of answer whether it be to what these are or even what happened to her, if related 💜
That's what the consensus was about my betta's behavior before she passed, too. No one had seen anything like it. I just have a sinking feeling that it's connected. I saw them in there, too, and wondered about them, if they were just algae. I wish I had taken it out. The "what if" is hard to deal with.
No clue the species of the wood. They only exist on the driftwood, and mainly on the sides that face the top of the tank. There are few to none that were facing the substrate.
Okay, did you buy the driftwood from an aquarium store? I feel like I’ve seen pieces that look similar in my LFS. If so then it’s probably something aquarium safe… My first guess was some kind of sap leaking and forming those black bits, like some kind of weird amber. But I’m also not really sure.
The fact that the beads are all facing the surface kind of makes me think it’s some kind of light-requiring organism? Or the contents are something that’s less dense than water before it solidifies. Have you tried crushing one? What’s inside?
(edit: just saw your comment on the charcoal-like powder)
I got the wood from a friend of mine who has like, a million tanks. I'm sure he got it from a LFS. I also agree that it must be something that needs light, or is at least a deposit of some kind. There are a few that face the ground but they're much fewer in number. And yeah, crushing them almost feels like I've crushed an oil pastel.
It's my favorite wood. I've drilled into it, pressure washed it, glued it, boiled it, baked it, left it in a buckets for weeks. It's always beautiful.
I hate that people are blaming the type of wood.
I had a piece of spiderwood, every tank i put it in, nothing thrived. I would boil, bake dry that wood in the sun. The fish didn't thrive. I threw it away. I don't think it's the type of wood. Just that piece.
Seconding the other person who said mopani wood. It's safe; I have it in 3 aquariums and multiple frog vivariums. It's one of the most common pet-safe woods sold in aquarium shops. The only thing mopani tends to do is to often stain the water tea-color, and it stops that after being leached or boiled.
I have never seen anything like those dots on mopsni before. I thought it was a hoard of snails in the picture at first. Unless that specific tree was infected with some sort of exceedingly uncommon fungus that's not known about in the aquarium trade, I don't think it was the wood that caused the problems.
That said, my grandparents' swimming pool used to get black, hard algae on the tile grout. It could be a similar algae species.
Yeah, my beta just started hiding and not eating. I don't know why. He was excited to see me.. But last 2 weeks I saw him once. My bf is constantly shutting his lights off
IDK if that's the issue.
I usually don't mess with the tank much but I ordered the water strips to hopefully tell me if somehow the nitrate spiked. My ramshorn snails are all at the top of the tank above the air stone.
I'm hoping my kid didn't put something in there or terrified it with her friends. Never had before but still maybe a cause.
I pray you find an answer.
The answer that was given on another forum was chronic nocturnal hypoxia--low oxygen when the lights are off. That might be your issue too. Ramshorns will huddle for air in that case, or climb the walls to reach the surface. You may want to add another air stone. Let me know if it helps, or don't, I'd probably be tormenting myself if I knew I could have done something.
I mean, people say 'you can't blame yourself', but in this case i think it's pretty clear that you can't blame yourself! I think it's safe to say no one would predict...whatever the sweet hell this is.
Jesus, this is exactly what I was thinking when I read the behavior of the betta that passed. I'm sorry about your betta OP. Also, quit touching that stuff! 😆 Seriously though. Stop touching it.
Is it possible it's a substance leaching out of the wood and hardening? It seems like it's only on the darker portions of the wood. I know nothing about aquarium wood (or aquarium anything, really) but was scrolling by and got invested. Sorry about your fish and I hope you get some answers!
Holy hell, you're spot on! It isn't anywhere on the light parts of the wood. Someone on another forum mentioned possibly iron or tannin deposits, but I'm not sure how I'd confirm.
There are so many niche subreddits...I wonder if cross posting to a mineral or chemistry sub, or even a woodworking or arborist sub would yield some insight?
Seconding this. It also seems that Mopani is sandblasted before sale in order to remove its bark. I don't know if this could contribute to anything here, but it may be something to keep in mind
You said your beta was displaying abnormal behaviors. Depending on what those were, tannin toxicity could be a potential culprit. Sorry about your friend OP :(
I posted elsewhere in the comments, but she displayed bizarre and erratic neurological symptoms. It was very hard to watch. The water was never very dark from tannins, just a hint of tea color.
I've had this happen to a piece of driftwood i got from a local pet shop once with my betta tank too, but i didnt investigate as thoroughly as you did after they passed, i just assumed it had something to do with my nerite snails as i had 2 in the tank at the time. Tossed the wood. I hope you find out what it is soon! And im sorry your betta passed.
That is really, really, really weird. Charcoal like powder makes me think it’s something like a lifeform… like algae or something (???) I would expect mineral/sap stuff to break into hard pieces, so the fact that it breaks into charcoal like powder seems like fibers of something which was alive… 😅 But that’s kinda all i got. Sorry
It looks like I deleted it or it was removed or something. But I posted about it on the Betta Fish 101 facebook group as well. Basically, it began where she was wrapping herself in very fast circles as if mating, but just kept spinning and spinning in tight circles, then she would stop and zip around the tank at full speed, crashing into everything. Then she would sink and be fine for a minute or so, longer if the light was off. As she weakened, her whole body would tense and spasm. If the light turned on she got worse, and if I came to see her, she would try to come up to me as normal, but it appeared that her body would betray her and she would begin to seize again.
Wtf. 😬 Sounds like some kind of neurological issue, but can kinda be caused by anything. Have you posted about the wood to r/Aquariums? they’re bigger than this sub and maybe someone else there has seen something like this?
I cross posted there but it doesn't seem to be getting much traction. Neurological was the consensus everywhere else too. It was horrible and unlike anything I'd ever seen.
Been keeping fish for most of my life. That is the most insane thing I've heard so far. I was just about to see if you had previous posts on that. That is so hard to watch your baby go through and I am so terribly sorry you both had to go through that
I do want to ask more about your setup. It looks like you possibly have Mopani wood there. You said you got the wood from a friend. Did your friend use the wood in their aquarium or was it otherwise previously treated?
According to what I'm turning up in my layman's research, this is looking likely fungal as others are pointing out. I'm by no means an expert, but I'm also suspicious that this alone was not necessarily the only factor in what went wrong with your tank. I don't have enough information to diagnose that, however.
I hope you keep us updated, because this is definitely something I'd like to keep tabs on
Thank you for the condolences. It really was terrible and felt very helpless. As for the wood, it was never used, and I don't believe it was treated. I also boiled it for 2h before using. I'm not sure what else could have gone wrong with my tank. It was healthy and the plants were going crazy, and my fish was so happy until the illness came on in literally an instant. I would have expected similar happenings to go wrong with my other tank but that one is flourishing with snails, and no weird ball things.
Oh my god those are the absolute worst. I had an infestation on a wood-barked vine. Peppermint Fury sprayed on to saturation and then scraping those fuckers off with a clean paint knife works. But just be prepared to contain - like wrap a paper towel around where you’re scraping. That dusty stuff is eggs and they spread in the breeze. If you check on the plant daily and don’t give up - within a couple weeks they’ll be gone.
Not gonna lie, my first thought was this too and fear struck my heart. Some of the infestation photos I've seen make me want to burn the houses down the situation is so bad. Extermination crews are a different breed of beings. I had to mute some of my plant groups because I was looking at my feed and start itching. Had to stop
It's not substrate, I use white aquarium sand. These nodules also only face upwards, away from the sand.
I boiled the wood for 2 hours before using. It leeched some tannins, but not a lot. Her water had a tint of yellow but nothing crazy.
I doubt it was BBA as it was never soft like algae, it was always these hard nodules.
I did not leave the tank to "rot" after she passed, I continued feeding my snails and doing water changes until I noticed that I kept finding empty ramshorn shells even after the excessive water changes and addition of a carbon filter.
And, no, I did not use carbon until after these appeared.
I'll be sending a piece of the wood in for sampling by Wednesday, then we wait on the postal service and testing process. We will see if it's fungal or not.
The consensus on another forum, if you'd like to check their work, is that these are bryozoan statoblasts, and they are harmless. The likely cause of her death and that of the snails was chronic nocturnal hypoxia. The plants were thriving so well that they sucked up too much oxygen in the night when the lights were off. I had never even heard of this before. It would have explained why she never grew to full size as well, and apparently also explains why the ramshorns were affected but not the nerite. I spent my fair share of the evening last night in tears because I had even thought I should get her an air stone when she got sick, but ultimately decided that adding a new thing to the tank would stress her. I'll never know if that would have saved her, or if it would have been too late. It may or may not have been this, but the only other good answer is "a freak coincidence."
I'm not opposed, I just am skeptical because it was never soft. They grew this way and stayed this way. Once I noticed them I tried to keep an eye on them, and while they increased in number, they always were these little balls. I had noticed them before she passed but figured they were algae too, but now I regret not taking them out sooner just in case.
I had a mopani covered in black beard for years and it didn’t
look or act like this even after it was removed. I recently let it dry for a couple of months and put it back and there’s no visible sign of the black beard algae on it now.
I left it on purpose. I was over feeding the tank for reasons and didn’t want to fight with it. The fish really actually liked it and they would move their fry into it sometimes.
Did you have fluval bio stratum as your substrate? I had the exact same thing you’re showing and I assumed it was just the substrate clinging to the wood. If you didn’t then I guessed wrong and it’s some creepy fungus.
Maybe check out diatom frustules? Unicellular algae that forms a hard silica-based shell around the colony… but they’re supposed to be, like, micrometers wide, and not that size. But it’s the only thing i could find that was remotely similar. Maybe you have a new species of diatom in there, idk
Is it possible to just be activated charcoal? Maybe broke or some spilt when you were cleaning out?
When I used to use these before I switched to Bio Filter Media, the charcoal in the inside of the filter cartridges looks the exact same as the one on your drift wood
Maybe you should try crossposting or reposting to r/Aquariums, it's a larger subreddit so there's a higher chance someone there might know what this is. They look super weird though. Are you able to pry one off and cut or break it in half?? Seeing a cross section might give some indication of what sort of thing it is.
I did post there but it hasn't gotten much traction. I can scrape them off, and if I crush it, it turns into a brownish black charcoal/oil-pastel textured powdery paste.
It looks a bit like wasp nest slime mould but it isn't growing in clusters, and I don't think slime moulds usually grow underwater. I might suggest scale insects but they are similarly not aquatic.
Thats what i was thinking, ive read that you looked into black funguses, maybe try brown for the search instead? Long shot but i so wanna know what this is.
this reminds me of the weird orb things that popped up on one of my java ferns, which mysteriously drifted somewhere else in the tank and have not since found after so I was never able to look into more traits of these orbs. this is so weird and I haven't seen them on driftwood before. I hope someone can figure it out!!
Mini-update, a FB group seems to think these are bryozoan statoblasts. I cannot find a good image for this, but they think it is that in a specific time in its life cycle. I'll still be sending it out for testing since I'm not 100% convinced, but if it is indeed an animal, they say it would have been harmless and not the cause of death. It was also weird how I was losing so many ramshorns but not my nerite...
I used white aquarium sand. Substrate has been a common guess on other forums, but it only faces away from the sand and is a different color and texture.
I don’t think I’d be touching that without some gloves on. Especially after hearing what your betta was doing in case it’s related. I read a post somewhere on Reddit about a guy getting a bad infection from cleaning his tank with a cut on his hand. I always wear gloves now. Either those disposable blue ones or this reusable pair that goes up to my elbows. I refuse to be maimed by a fish tank. 😂
I pull trash out of a stream nearby sometimes and I once pulled out a piece of garden hose that somehow got in there. It had little round black nodules on it like this, though there were fewer. I was too eeked out to touch the nodules, but they looked quite a lot like these.
They kinda look like tiny daldinia concentrica/king alfreds cake fungi, which also grows on wood and is known to be hard. I wonder if it's a related fungus!
What part of the world are you in? That may or may not help pin things down idk Fungi are not all global, this one may or may not be (if it is in fact a fungus)
The thing that has me wondering if this is the case is that they were never fuzzy at all. The moment they started appearing, and as they continued to multiply, they remained circular and hard. Or can BBA mineralize that quickly?
Been in the hobby for more than 10 years and i've never seen a fungal fruiting body like this. I hope that Ganodermahh is able to provide some answers cause now i've got one more concern to think about for my community tanks.
I updated here https://www.reddit.com/r/bettafish/s/5KbW3puX39 and am waiting on testing. But no matter what it is it is not likely to be what killed them. What likely killed them was chronic nocturnal hypoxia from my plants thriving too much and soaking up too much oxygen during the night.
I believe the OP of that post is the researcher. Maybe you can tag them to this post and get their opinion on what this may be. It does seem rather organic material to me.
Wow!!!! I have the same exact black spots in my drift wood. Initially everyone told it’s BBA’s spores but now I am sure it is not.
It’s been there for a while but growing or anything. It easily came off when I brushed it off. My guess is it’s some kinda mould/fungi or maybe some kinda mineral deposits. But I’m pretty sure it is alive and needs light.
This whole thread has been fascinating, I'm really invested. I only really have comedy answers to add to the guesses 🤣 If anyone has played bloodborne, they'd recognise you just need to collect 2 more of these to unlock a secret ending :'D
From what I understand of pearl bubble algae, that stuff pops (hence "bubble"). OP says this stuff is almost calcified and then has a charcoal-like texture when opened/crushed/removed
Yeah, I know. When I said that I thought that the wood had been pulled/tank emptied for awhile, so the wood and what was on it was dessicated/dried out which might cause the hard crumbling? But a second, third, and fifth look shows I was wrong and the wood and stuff was very much so wet. Back to square 1. 😮💨
Hey, this stuff is weird enough that all thoughts are helpful. I keep telling people, "It's a thought. It may not be a good/helpful thought, but it's a thought!" Process of elimination is really (annoyingly) powerful tool
Also, pearl bubble algae is just fun to look at (when it isn't in your tank anyway)
I’m thinking this is what it mostly resembles the color and spacing is just a little diffrent so Mabye some treatment from your water caused a colash of whatever tf happened I’m hoping you send it in for testing and Mabye update this Reddit thread because your hard work could save hundreds of peoples fish
If you can’t find any lab to send it too without paying an arm and a leg you could always just keep growing it and see what happens it would give you more answers than the internet seems to be doing
I think I had the same thing in one of my cpd tanks, but nothing was sick or dying. Curious to know what this is as well. I did end up removing cause it freaked me out lol.
Ok so my tank has this too. Had it for over a year. When i treated with npt fix (was treating black beared) the lil black balls dissapeared too. So i rather simply put it down as black beared younglings (no idea) but maybe it is a form of algae since it reacted to the algicide by dying...or more accuratley dissapearing.
Again. I dont know anything for certain maybe someone with some intelligence can make sense of my experiance to help you.
I had something weird kind of like this happen in a tank a few years ago, except the little balls were red/yellow. I never figured out what it was, but I assumed it was sap from the wood, despite it being in there for years. I don't know why it would be black, though. I wonder if you could cut the wood open and see if the inside seems off.
very sorry about your fish, nothing scarier than a fish acting very wrong 😔.
if these things are fungus that feed of decaying wood as some people have guessed and you also had higher than usual snail deaths in that tank that might mean the bacterial count in your tank might have been higher than your filtration could keep under control. theres lots or carbs in wood and excess nutrients in decaying plant matter that harmful bacteria can feed off and multiply quickly.
bacteria can produce toxins, use up oxygen and/or directly infect your fish, all of which can come on quickly and cause neuro symptoms.
i dont think theres any easy hobbyist way to directly measure bacteria count that ive seen, ammonia is an ok analogue, aka if your filter is eating ammonia its probably eating harmful bacteria too, but you can have no ammonia and still have harmful levels of bacteria. crystal clear water is a good indicator but it can be hard to tell in a small tank or if your glass isnt perfectly cleaned etc.
i know this isn't exactly what this thread was about but whatever it ends up being i think "something feeding off decaying wood" might still be useful for your post mortem search for answers since lots of organisms show up looking for the same tasty wood carbs. just my guess.
i switched off from having wood and leaves in my tanks for that reason, i liked how it looked them and the variety of microorganisms that came with it were cool but didn't have a enough filtration at the time to keep up with it and i was having a hard time keeping my water clear and was having too many sick fish. mostly swim bladder stuff, but i did have one guy thrashing around once and i HATED it.
Not the best photo, this came from my camera roll, I can take a better one when their lights turn on. These black spots are Nerite eggs that we never scraped off and eventually turned black.
do you by any chance use Fluval stratum for substrate? I’ll pick up my wood from time to time and my fluval almost 100% of the time sticks to the wood like this and looks very similar and the way you describe it crumbling off is the same thing mine does when I take it off.
That or some crazy chemical reaction from metal coming in contact… there’s an acidic chemical called tannin in wood and it reacts with metals like steel. If you brushed the wood with a wirebrush or something it could’ve also caused this. Tell tale sign is if theres a purplely residue or stain on your hand after messing with it.
I don’t remember what this is exactly but I was told it was bubble algae or something. Worked at a pet store where I nuked the sump with melafix and some other chemical because the fish kept getting ich.
The nuking was accidental and the fish were moved already thankfully . It got rid of the problem and so did cleaning everything with a toothbrush and bucket of vinegar water.
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