Backyard Aquaponics
A place to discuss aquaponics

i pulled out my airstones today to find these weird brown bubbles on it. Is this good bacteria?

Don't know what it is... but it doesn't look healthy to me...

its right on the airstone so figured it had to be areorobic which are usually good?

What type of air pump are you using?

I see, thought it looked oil based, perhaps impurities in the piping?
Being new to fish keeping do air stones usually get growth of any sort on them?

Yes and it stuffs them, but I have never seen that before.

My first question is was the air stone exposed to salt in any way? Saltwater bacteria or halophiles are not really good in fresh water or seawater and it looks similar but with 20,000,000 different bacterias who can really tell without a culture. I would certainly remove the bacteria from the airstone as it is spreading and production can certainly clog the stone but also affect fish life in a closed system. I would pull it and place the stone in hydrogen peroxide or bleach but let it cure so as not to incur a larger infection throughout the system.

Do you have snails in your system. Could it be snail eggs?

Looks oily to me as well

Is it possible an angry neighbor came over at night and glued little pieces of kombucha SCOBY onto your airstone when you weren't looking?

That's the only thing I could think of.

I figured that it couldnt be oil because doesnt oil ususally float? There is nothing on the surface that I can see its only on the air stone. I did add some starter bacteria that i picked up from the pond store, could that be it?

Whats it taste like MM? I usually find the taste test is the only worth while test when identifying stange things...

Highly unlikely, but do you have mussels in your tank?
If so, it may be mussel babies.



http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Glochidium

I would not throw it away like people suggest, If possible could you please place it in another continer with AP water in it, still attached to the air line and place it in this container to quarantine it, but allow it to live, if it spreads then you know its a bacteria/fungi. If not you may have something non harmful or even beneficial.

lol I will send you a sample and you can send m your findings