Bacterial mats?

[MartinM]

I’m having this growing in patches on my sand. I’m almost positive it’s bacterial (it has a hydrogen sulfide smell and isn’t photosynthetic).

I have a sugar fine sand bed with tons of life to maintain it: pods, lots of work tubes, conchs, nassarius snails, cucumbers, etc as well as two small sleeper gobies although probably not enough given the tank size (nearly 2 sq meters of sand bed)

Whatever it is, it grows very fast, even at night. It has some areas it prefers, but those areas don’t seem to have a correlation such as light or water motion.
Thanks for any help!

 

[HankstankXXL750 Verified Sponsor]

I’m having this growing in patches on my sand. I’m almost positive it’s bacterial (it has a hydrogen sulfide smell and isn’t photosynthetic).

I have a sugar fine sand bed with tons of life to maintain it: pods, lots of work tubes, conchs, nassarius snails, cucumbers, etc as well as two small sleeper gobies although probably not enough given the tank size (nearly 2 sq meters of sand bed)

Whatever it is, it grows very fast, even at night. It has some areas it prefers, but those areas don’t seem to have a correlation such as light or water motion.
Thanks for any help!

How old is the tank?

 

[monkeyCmonkeyDo]

Looks like brown algae. Diatom. Cyano bacteria maybe. Usually it's green and red and shimmy or turfy and thick and velvety. Yours looks like diatom to me.
D

 

[monkeyCmonkeyDo]

I'd be suspect to silicate or not near 0 tds rodi water
D