# Slime mold



## Peacelily (May 24, 2012)

I have a completely unexpected addition to a new tank I started about eight weeks ago: a slime mold. It seems to have started on my driftwood bonsai (that's where I still see most of it), but now sometimes shows up on the back wall of the tank, where it moves around for a few days and then disperses. When I turn the light on in the morning it's often several inches away from its location the night before, and the shape has changed. It looks like a small, veined white mass, a little bit like a cobweb.

The biology nerd in me is delighted; it's a really cool organism. The name is unfortunate, since they aren't molds or any kind of fungus; they are simply a collection of single cells (often similar to amoebae) that can come together into a visible mass and fuse, or form a multicellular structure. I remember working with them in lab in one of my undergrad biology courses, and it was fun. (I did mention that I was a biology nerd. Don't judge.)

The aquarist in me is a little worried, though. I had no idea they grew in freshwater aquaria and I'm not sure what their impact will be. Most species are harmless and eat algae and decaying material, which would be a plus. I'm not sure what affect they might have on the plants, though, since I found some on an intact leaf of _Alternanthera._

Has anyone else had them? Do they cause any problems? (Sorry the picture is blurred. It's the best I could take and gives the general idea of what they look like. You can see some moss at the bottom of the picture, to give you a sense of its size.)
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## Rana (Apr 27, 2013)

Your attachments aren't working. :c I'd love to see this suspected slime mold if you can re-upload the pics.

I know that a white fuzzy mold on "fresh" driftwood is common and totally normal, it's just the top layer of wood starting to decay and dies down after a few days to weeks. I've never heard of it truly _migrating_ off the wood and onto other parts of the tank, though!

Honestly, I personally would probably suck it up with a siphon to get rid of it. It may be harmless, but it might not be, especially if it's producing unexpected waste products. I would prefer not to take that risk in my own tank.


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## Peacelily (May 24, 2012)

Let me try that picture again.


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## Rana (Apr 27, 2013)

Oh that's funky. Definitely not the "driftwood fuzz" I'm familiar with, so I don't really have any advice for you besides my gut reaction to remove it from the tank.

Do you have any livestock in the tank, or just plants right now? If it's just plants, you could leave it for a while and see what happens. If you have fish in the tank though I personally would err on the side of caution.

If you don't want to get rid of it completely, maybe siphon/scoop it up, and put it into its own little container with a plant to see how it does? Underwater slime molds could be the new aquarium craze, you never know...


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## Peacelily (May 24, 2012)

Rana said:


> Oh that's funky. Definitely not the "driftwood fuzz" I'm familiar with, so I don't really have any advice for you besides my gut reaction to remove it from the tank.
> 
> Do you have any livestock in the tank, or just plants right now? If it's just plants, you could leave it for a while and see what happens. If you have fish in the tank though I personally would err on the side of caution.


I just put in a betta yesterday. He's alone, except for the snails that came along with some of my plants. I haven't seen the slime mold since I added him, but it will disperse for days at a time and then show up again somewhere else.


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## Peacelily (May 24, 2012)

Rana said:


> If you don't want to get rid of it completely, maybe siphon/scoop it up, and put it into its own little container with a plant to see how it does? Underwater slime molds could be the new aquarium craze, you never know...


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