DEFINE - What is biofilm?
Biofilm is a white, translucent film or jelly that generally develops on organic hardscape, like wood. Luckly, it is not an algae at all. It is completely harmless and will go away on its own as the organic matter on your hardscape is depleted. The 'film' is produced by bacteria feeding on the excess organic waste present in the water In regular-people terms, that means biofilm stems from organic waste the 'stuff' that's given off by fish and plants.
General cause:
Organics in the wood
REMOVAL - How to remove this stuff
The methods we are about to mention will not prevent biofilm algae from coming back. We'll address that shortly. But here are a few ways to remove it from the tank.
Toothbrushes - You can use a toothbrush to remove it from your hardscape. Just don't leave it floating around your tank after you dislodge it. Use a siphon to suck it up and out of your tank during a water change.
PREVENTION - How to keep this stuff from coming back
I would normally give my spiel about how "we need to make changes to how we've designed our aquarium otherwise the algae will just keep coming back"... but this is not an algae and there is only one solution... so your off the hook this time. 😉
Solution 1: Time is the only fix. What will happen is over time the bacteria feeding on the organics in your wood will run out of organics to feed on, and die off. The biofilm will be produced so long as they have something to feed on. Just keep removing it, and over the course of a couple weeks it should stop coming back. Its that easy.
If you have any questions about algae, reach out to us on our new forum! We can help you troubleshoot your algae issues.
