# Excess Slime Coat?



## jessiepbg (Nov 13, 2010)

Housing 
What size is your tank? 1.5 gallon
What temperature is your tank? 78 degrees
Does your tank have a filter? No
Does your tank have an air stone or other type of aeration? No
Is your tank heated? Yes
What tank mates does your betta fish live with? None

Food
What type of food do you feed your betta fish? Was Betta pellets with 1 freeze-dried brine shrimp a week as a treat. As of this morning he's getting one or two mysis or brine shrimp off one of those frozen "fish gumdrops" plus 1 betta pellet
How often do you feed your betta fish? twice a day

Maintenance 
How often do you perform a water change? every other day or every 3rd day
What percentage of the water do you change when you perform a water change? 50%
What type of additives do you add to the water when you perform a water change? Prime

Water Parameters:
Have you tested your water? If so, what are the following parameters?

Ammonia: 0
Nitrite: 0
Nitrate: 
pH:
Hardness:
Alkalinity: 

Symptoms and Treatment
How has your betta fish's appearance changed? 
How has your betta fish's behavior changed?
When did you start noticing the symptoms? About a week ago
Have you started treating your fish? If so, how?
Does your fish have any history of being ill? No
How old is your fish (approximately)? Bought from petsmart a few weeks ago

My new betta is showing no signs of being sick, but when you agitate the marble gravel at the bottom of his tank, there's little mucus-looking things, about 3-4 mm long at the very most, that float around. I siphoned a bunch of them out. Is that excess slime coat or something to be worried about? I don't see any on the fish and I've found this stuff in the water the last 2-3 times I've cleaned his tank. It settles to the bottom of the tank really quickly when the water stops moving. It doesn't really bother me, but I want to make sure it's not bad for the fish.


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## Adastra (Jun 18, 2010)

I recommend that you add 100% water changes to your schedule, at least every other water change. 50% every 2-3 days is a good start, but in uncycled tanks, you have to do 100%s in order to remove all the nastiness from the gravel and the ammonia residue from other parts of the tank. If you think about it, if you do one 50% change today and one 50% change tomorrow, sure, that adds up to 100, but that doesn't mean the fish ever has 100% clean water. There is inevitably some of the old dirty water left plus whatever the fish contributed to it in the meantime, so over time, these partial changes become less and less effective. Only filtered, cycled tanks can thrive on partial changes alone, and 1.5G is simply too small to be set up that way.

Sometimes excess slime coat can occur as a reaction to unfavorable water conditions, especially if your additives also "promote" slime coat growth.


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## jessiepbg (Nov 13, 2010)

Ok, that's a pretty easy thing to do. Does a 100% change weekly plus 2 50% in between sound like a good schedule?


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## Adastra (Jun 18, 2010)

You could try it. To be on the safe side, though, test your water for the next couple of weeks to be sure it's truly effective at keeping your water as clean as it should be. If you don't own a reliable liquid master kit, you can take a water sample to the pet store and have it tested free of charge.


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