WHAT IS IN MY FX5!!!?????!!!!!

  • We are currently upgrading MFK. thanks! -neo
jr monster fish;3791975; said:
According to my dad (I would trust him), my science teacher, and my experience, bleach (or rather hydrogen peroxide, the main ingredient) will turn into water after a time. It's because its molecular structure is H2O2 (H-O-O-H), and it will lose the extra oxygen molecule over time. If you've ever seen a bottle with a high concentration of hydrogen peroxide it looks like an accordion in the middle, so the pressure inside doesn't build too much (from the extra O molecule).


I would rinse it really throughly, and put it in a bucket of water, rinsing it and the bucket and refilling the bucket every day for about a week. That should do it.

lol im a nerd
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careful here. watch what type of bleach you get. regular household bleach is chlorine bleach (sodium hypochlorite). it does not contain any H202.

peroxide bleach is usually only used for whitening laundry and does not disinfect like chlorine bleach does.
 
12 Volt Man;3792641; said:
careful here. watch what type of bleach you get. regular household bleach is chlorine bleach (sodium hypochlorite). it does not contain any H202.

peroxide bleach is usually only used for whitening laundry and does not disinfect like chlorine bleach does.
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I usually reserve peroxide for whitening teeth except for the time when I bleached the wrestlers' hair back in high school. :D If I'm planning to actually disinfect something, I reach for the good old fashion, stinky, corrosive stuff. I believe for disinfecting you only need a ratio of 30 parts water and 1 part bleach.
 
Ok, my sleepy head just rolled out of bed. Glad to see the hydrogen peroxide situation has worked its self out. Bleach is a Chlorine product, its very volitile (evaporates quick and easy).

Your cyanobacteria research is nothing short of brilliant though. We have a winner. It undergoes anerobic respiration in the dark and reduces thiosulfate. Take a quick peak at your bottle of dechlorinator, guess what you keep putting in your tank?

Ok, we have solved the "what is this". And I assure you 1 billion times, this is sooo much better than the fungul infection I thought you had. It too is contagious between tanks, but its not a nightmare.

Now on to the "how do I not experience this again as now my garage smells like a rotting corpse in a sulfer bath" (A BRILLIANT phrase BTW, I intend to use that in the future!)

This is the hard part. The bleach trick here isn't really needed. Feel free to do it, but its not going to prevent future out breaks. It WILL get the dead guy stink out of your filter though.

In order for the cyclic phosphoalization to take place free electrons are needed. Period, no way around it. Obtaining these electrons is called reduction (I am simplifying this for ya, I swear.) Oxygen reduces really easy and allows respiration to take place with very little effort. That is why 99+% of the planet is oxygen dependent. Some crafty little buggers learned to reduce sulfur (and a few other unpleasant things) to allow them selves the option of living in places the oxygen dependent critters coudn't. Reducing sulfur is not a small task, which is why when given a choice between oxygen and sulfur, EVERYTHING chooses the oxygen.

Anerobic (with out oxygen) respiration will not occur in the presence of oxygen simply because you would be a fool to use sulfur when oxygen is handy. If you have cyanobacteria reducing sulfur in your filter, you have an anerobic environment in there. WHY?!?

If there is water moving through it, its not anerobic. You are going to need to really look at where this stuff is pocketed and where its not. You have something really wrong in there.
 
Wet: you mentioned about hooking up UV anyhow?
 
kdrun76;3793014; said:
Ok, my sleepy head just rolled out of bed. Glad to see the hydrogen peroxide situation has worked its self out. Bleach is a Chlorine product, its very volitile (evaporates quick and easy).

Your cyanobacteria research is nothing short of brilliant though. We have a winner. It undergoes anerobic respiration in the dark and reduces thiosulfate. Take a quick peak at your bottle of dechlorinator, guess what you keep putting in your tank?

Ok, we have solved the "what is this". And I assure you 1 billion times, this is sooo much better than the fungul infection I thought you had. It too is contagious between tanks, but its not a nightmare.

Now on to the "how do I not experience this again as now my garage smells like a rotting corpse in a sulfer bath" (A BRILLIANT phrase BTW, I intend to use that in the future!)

This is the hard part. The bleach trick here isn't really needed. Feel free to do it, but its not going to prevent future out breaks. It WILL get the dead guy stink out of your filter though.

In order for the cyclic phosphoalization to take place free electrons are needed. Period, no way around it. Obtaining these electrons is called reduction (I am simplifying this for ya, I swear.) Oxygen reduces really easy and allows respiration to take place with very little effort. That is why 99+% of the planet is oxygen dependent. Some crafty little buggers learned to reduce sulfur (and a few other unpleasant things) to allow them selves the option of living in places the oxygen dependent critters coudn't. Reducing sulfur is not a small task, which is why when given a choice between oxygen and sulfur, EVERYTHING chooses the oxygen.

Anerobic (with out oxygen) respiration will not occur in the presence of oxygen simply because you would be a fool to use sulfur when oxygen is handy. If you have cyanobacteria reducing sulfur in your filter, you have an anerobic environment in there. WHY?!?

If there is water moving through it, its not anerobic. You are going to need to really look at where this stuff is pocketed and where its not. You have something really wrong in there.
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My gut reaction was anaerobic bacteria when I opened that thing up cause it was dark and smelled like sulfur. But, like you said, it didn't make sense since it should be circulating well oxygenation water through there. When volt man suggested cyanobacteria, I initially thought there was no way as this stuff is particularly known as a bacteria that uses photosynthesis for its energy. Then my husband mentioned that we've had it in the past, it was the right color and smell, and I knew some bacteria can between aerobic respiration and anaerobic respiration. Looked it up and bam! there it was. Now to figure out why my filter has gone anaerobic... It looks like I'm going to be dismantling the FX5 all the way and seeing if there are problems with the pump. I did find that the previous owner had a filter pad in there that I had forgotten about. It was caked pretty bad and I wonder if the top tray was just not getting water flow. I'll test it all today with different variables before I mess with the pump on it. Anyways, rinsed it with hot water and let it dry. I haven't seen this stuff anywhere else, and I'm hoping it stays that way. I think I can skip the bleach if I just let it dry out.

Proteus;3793316; said:
Wet: you mentioned about hooking up UV anyhow?
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Yeah. This isn't going to be easy with the current plumbing. Its an inline UV and I have an external overflow and the FX5. It can be done, but I would have to change stuff. I do wonder however, if since the cyanobacteria seems to be out competed everywhere else in the tank, if that a good flowing filter and the small, submersible UV sterilizer in there will do the trick anyways.
 
This is very interesting!
 
Okay. I think I figured out why there was dead water in the FX5. I do believe it was the forgotten filter pad. When I completely dismantled it and took out all the biomaterial, there I saw a very clogged nasty filter pad. I swear it laughed and said "NOOB!" at me when I exposed it. Since the filter actually only bonus filtration on this system, I really hadn't noticed that it wasn't flowing well. Anyways, I fired it back up last night, and its running well. I think I've fixed my mistake. Thanks for all your help people! I'll update on if I have any further break outs and whether or not I should have done more than hot water and letting it dry out.
 
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