White slime bacteria everywhere

[trmiv]

So for the past month or so I’ve been dealing with what seems to me to be some type of bacterial bloom. It started with super cloudy water, which I cleared up by adding my UV sterilizer to the tank. While the tank remains super clear, this white snotty stuff began to appear everywhere. First I noticed it covering my filter socks. Then I started noticing all over the display.

It blows off easily, and doesn’t seem to care about light. It collects really thick in the filter socks if I run those. If I use floss it will clog it in a couple of hours.

So some stuff about the tank. This tank is a Red Sea reefer 350 Deluxe that was started in early March with mostly dry rock and sand. I did add a few small pieces of live rock I got locally. The dry rock was cleaned in acid and soaked for a week in RO/DI after. The tank was then cycled with biospira and ammonia and left without anything in it for a month before my first three fish were added

Current inhabitants are a juvenile tomini tang, small occ clown, bicolor blenny, melanarus wrasse, and a small PJ cardinal. Also a small skunk cleaner shrimp. Corals are some small zoa frags, small Duncan frag, one ricordea, and a few small lps frags. Cleanup crew is just 4 hermits and 3 trochus.

Parameters currently:
Nitrate: 1ppm
Phos: 0 on Hanna meter
Alk: 10dkh
Calcium: 420 ppm
Mag: not sure haven’t checked.
Salinity is 1.026.

I do a 10% weekly water change with regular instant ocean mixed with 0 TDS RO/DI made in a brute container.

I do not carbon dose this tank and I don’t run any biopellets

As far as environmental carbon sources at one point my wife was using glade plugins in the house and one of those things that sprays air fresheners every 30 minutes. I got rid of those a little over a week ago and aired out the house. Since then the stuff in the tank has increased.

I’ve read conflicting advice on how to fight this crap. Some people say skim more, feed less. Others say skim less feed more. Some say add another bacteria source like microbacter7 or Stability, others say that stuff caused their problems.

Obviously the nitrate and phosphate in this tank are too low. I feed a decent amount but it never goes up. To change that I’m considering only skimming 12 on/12 off, removing my activated carbon and purigen. Cutting back on water changes for a month. And starting to feed some reef roids.

Other than trying to get my nutrients up some anyone have any other ideas? Would adding another bacteria source help? I’ve heard of some people trying waste away for this so I was considering that

 

[trmiv]

Here’s another video of it at night.

 

[danreefman]

Looks like very new rock. Quit stocking, do regular maintenance and let the tank sort it out. Patients and maintenance. Get some more clean up crew. Your tank is very new and is probably going to go through some swings and blooms.

 

[trmiv]

Letting it sort out was my plan. But the question is do I cut down on my water changes and nutrient export and let my nitrate and phosphate rise. They are both extremely low, and I’d like to get them up. I’d imagine those being low are contributing. On my old tank I had Dinos pop up after a move due to the extremely low nutrients.

 

[Dr. Dendrostein]

So for the past month or so I’ve been dealing with what seems to me to be some type of bacterial bloom. It started with super cloudy water, which I cleared up by adding my UV sterilizer to the tank. While the tank remains super clear, this white snotty stuff began to appear everywhere. First I noticed it covering my filter socks. Then I started noticing all over the display.

It blows off easily, and doesn’t seem to care about light. It collects really thick in the filter socks if I run those. If I use floss it will clog it in a couple of hours.

So some stuff about the tank. This tank is a Red Sea reefer 350 Deluxe that was started in early March with mostly dry rock and sand. I did add a few small pieces of live rock I got locally. The dry rock was cleaned in acid and soaked for a week in RO/DI after. The tank was then cycled with biospira and ammonia and left without anything in it for a month before my first three fish were added

Current inhabitants are a juvenile tomini tang, small occ clown, bicolor blenny, melanarus wrasse, and a small PJ cardinal. Also a small skunk cleaner shrimp. Corals are some small zoa frags, small Duncan frag, one ricordea, and a few small lps frags. Cleanup crew is just 4 hermits and 3 trochus.

Parameters currently:
Nitrate: 1ppm
Phos: 0 on Hanna meter
Alk: 10dkh
Calcium: 420 ppm
Mag: not sure haven’t checked.
Salinity is 1.026.

I do a 10% weekly water change with regular instant ocean mixed with 0 TDS RO/DI made in a brute container.

I do not carbon dose this tank and I don’t run any biopellets

As far as environmental carbon sources at one point my wife was using glade plugins in the house and one of those things that sprays air fresheners every 30 minutes. I got rid of those a little over a week ago and aired out the house. Since then the stuff in the tank has increased.

I’ve read conflicting advice on how to fight this crap. Some people say skim more, feed less. Others say skim less feed more. Some say add another bacteria source like microbacter7 or Stability, others say that stuff caused their problems.

Obviously the nitrate and phosphate in this tank are too low. I feed a decent amount but it never goes up. To change that I’m considering only skimming 12 on/12 off, removing my activated carbon and purigen. Cutting back on water changes for a month. And starting to feed some reef roids.

Other than trying to get my nutrients up some anyone have any other ideas? Would adding another bacteria source help? I’ve heard of some people trying waste away for this so I was considering that

May have sugar base foods, being fed to your creatures. I dose a sugar base formula. And sometimes just after I dose, bacteria boom is like fog coming into tank. Happens not often.

 

[trmiv]

I pretty much just feed LRS nano frozen and nori. Sometimes I add selcon or zoecon

 

[danreefman]

I always had good results with rods reef. This time back in the hobby they have LRS now. Could not get rid of diatoms and couldn't figure it out. Switched back to my old school favorite rods reef. Things are looking great. Sometimes all you need is more flow. It's really hard to pinpoint one thing.

 

[ScottB]

Thanks for the full description and the quality video. Normally, that would be enough to go on, but gotta admit something here stumps me: I have never seen a tank so white after 5-6 months. Even ULNS situations look "dirtier" than that.

I agree your assessment that more nutrient is called for. If you had some/any algae I'd be more circumspect.

My suggestions:

• GRADUALLY increase feeding. Reef Roids won't hurt but go slow.
• Gradually add more fish -- depending on size not more than 1 per week. 2 Weeks if larger.
• I like skimmer ON 24/7 for gas exchange. Every other cup of skimmate I would just dump back in the sump.
• Keep removing slime.
• Pick a consistent spot of slime, and photo it every couple of days to compare growth rates over time. (Is it getting more aggressive or less as feeding increases?)
• Test NO3 & PO4 every 3-4 days looking for a pattern (PPMs versus nutrient increase versus slime production)

I am not against dosing bacteria colonies to the tank, but they do tend to consume nutrient (nitrate mostly) faster, so maybe wait until your nutrient starts to climb.

Lastly, what lights & light schedule are you running? And how are the corals doing?

 

[trmiv]

Thanks for the feedback. I definitely want get the nutrients up. This tank has never shown any significant nutrients. I’ve done weekly 10% water changes since i set it up but I’m going to cut back to every other week.

Definitely want more fish. Fish isn’t a quick change for sure though. I like to QT for 8 weeks so that’s a slow process. I recently lost a coral beauty i had in QT so I broke down the QT to sterilize it and start over. So at least two months until I can get more fish in there once I set up the Qt again, maybe next weekend.

Lights are two hydra 26 HD. I run a a modified AB+ schedule from the video BRS did but I added more blue to preference. This is the schedule.

 

[ScottB]

Oh, and yes I would pull the purigen (soaks nitrates) for now, but keep the carbon AND the UV running. This just in case dinoflagellates become next nutrient competitors (which would suck).

Light source and cycle looks great. Amazing that is not growing some uglies for you by this time. That is the puzzling thing for me.

Hey, ANYBODY out there think this could be some kind of cyano? (I don't but, there is much I don't know, so...) I know it comes in various colors, but is white a cyano color?

 

[danreefman]

Oh, and yes I would pull the purigen (soaks nitrates) for now, but keep the carbon AND the UV running. This just in case dinoflagellates become next nutrient competitors (which would suck).

Light source and cycle looks great. Amazing that is not growing some uglies for you by this time. That is the puzzling thing for me.

Hey, ANYBODY out there think this could be some kind of cyano? (I don't but, there is much I don't know, so...) I know it comes in various colors, but is white a cyano color?

Yes to the cyano. It's very unpleasant had it twice both times around 4 months with dry rock. Went away than red cyano came again on both tanks. More pumps slowed it down. I'd feed live phyto to. That would make it bubble like crazy. But seemed the next day it was more thinned out than without the feeding. Ultimately seams that switching my food, played a big roll. Algea tube once I figured out how to grow algea in it, seamed to give me that extra purity.

 

[ScottB]

@danreefman I will never argue against more flow but I have an SPS bias. Playing defense against cyano, flow is also a valuable tool.

@trmiv needs some consensus on up/down nutrient. Phyto is rich stuff so also cannot disagree as in my tanks it adds both PO4 and NO3. Unless I am seeing GHA, I too dose phyto.

Again I say, this white slime on white substrate is new terrain for me so welcoming all informed contributors to the discussion.

 

[trmiv]

Yea aside from this stuff the tank doesn’t have any actual nuisance algae, which is odd. It had very very slight diatoms for a very brief period, but the hermits knocked that out quickly. It hasn’t gone through the really ugly stage, which I would expect by now.

I haven’t been able to get nutrients up in this tank at all and I feed a decent amount. I’m guessing the substrate and rock are binding phosphate somehow, but not sure why I’ve not yet been able to get nitrate to rise.

 

[road_runner]

The video is not clear.
If its indeed bacterial bloom, uv should take care of it. I use one of these cheap submerged UV light for such situations.

 

[trmiv]

Im already running UV. UV is taking care of the bacteria free floating in the water, the water was cloudy a few weeks ago when the bloom started and is crystal clear now. But UV can’t do anything about the bacterial snot attached to the rocks, clogging the filter socks, inside the overflow plumbing and return plumbing. I suspect if I took the UV offline the water would cloud again. Unfortunately the snot on the rocks has only gotten worse even with the UV running

 

[road_runner]

Im already running UV. UV is taking care of the bacteria free floating in the water, the water was cloudy a few weeks ago when the bloom started and is crystal clear now. But UV can’t do anything about the bacterial snot attached to the rocks, clogging the filter socks, inside the overflow plumbing and return plumbing. I suspect if I took the UV offline the water would cloud again. Unfortunately the snot on the rocks has only gotten worse even with the UV running

Then I am not sure ita bacteria. Any chance you can get clear picture for the film?

 

[trmiv]

The second video is about as clear as I can get. It seems like bacteria. It’s white, stringy, blows off easily and if I collect some off the socks it’s slimy to the touch. I had the same stuff years ago in an old tank as the result of vinegar in my top off for over saturating Kalk. Unfortunately there’s no obvious carbon source in this instance.

 

[road_runner]

Yeah I do not think this is bacterial bloom..are you sure it's not brown? It look more like diatom...

 

[ScottR]

How old is the tank? In a newer tank, there may not be enough microorganisms to keep each other at bay. So one organism can take hold and spread easily.

 

[road_runner]

Can I get some more details of your syatem?
System age
Biological filtration
Mechanical filtration
Dosing
Inhabitants
Dosing
Husbandry
Feeding regimens
Did you start live or dry rock? Am guessing dry.
Dry sand or live sand?
Can you get picture for your equipment
Latest parameters
What's your kits?