White Slime?

[Dustinryan2010]

To make a long story short, on March 10th I noticed my tank developing slimy snotty like algae type stuff. It covered everything. I was finally able to get rid of all of the visible clear/white slime about a week ago. It seems waste away as well as a big water change and airing out my house seemed to clear the issue. Or so I thought. Since then, my filter floss clogs up within 5-6 hours before flooding the media basket and setting off my ATO. I’m having to stay on top of changing it before it clogs, and keeping my ATO turned off and topping off manually. Does anyone know what the issue could be? At first I assumed a candle or air freshener. We have one air freshener that sprays every 30 minutes but it’s on the opposite end of the house and was never an issue until this past month, and I’ve been airing the house out for a few hours almost every day. I’m stumped and not sure what to do really. It seems within the same week I had an explosion of pineapple sponges and then came the white slime. As noted above, there’s no visible slime anywhere really, just filter floss that’s obviously catching slime that I’m not seeing dispersed in the water column.

 

[cracker]

Could be bacterial. Iv'e had white slimy stuff before I had very low nutrients the time.
Do You have low nutrients ? I pic would be very helpful.

 

[Dustinryan2010]

Could be bacterial. Iv'e had white slimy stuff before I had very low nutrients the time.
Do You have low nutrients ? I pic would be very helpful.

Yes I had very low nutrients.. my nitrates bottomed out to 0 for weeks. I’ve since been dosing Flourish and have gotten my nitrates up to 2-5, Phosphates have been 0.02-0.03

 

[Ly78]

Arr you carbon dosing? It seem to happen with carbon dosing.

 

[Dustinryan2010]

Could be bacterial. Iv'e had white slimy stuff before I had very low nutrients the time.
Do You have low nutrients ? I pic would be very helpful.

Most recent pic I have, just a 13.5 gallon, 7 months since setup. Had some cyano start coming in last week so treated with chemiclean this weekend. Cyano is gone but filters still clogging so chemi clean didn’t wipe it out like it did the cyano.

 

[Dustinryan2010]

No c

Arr you carbon dosing? It seem to happen with carbon dosing.

No carbon dosing, was running purigen and phosguard only

 

[Dustinryan2010]

Could be bacterial. Iv'e had white slimy stuff before I had very low nutrients the time.
Do You have low nutrients ? I pic would be very helpful.

This was on the 11th when the slime was in full force

 

[cracker]

Sorry Dustin I dob\n't see any thing like You describe. The tank looks really nice !

 

[Dustinryan2010]

Sorry Dustin I dob\n't see any thing like You describe. The tank looks really nice !

The slime in the display tank is gone, I got rid of it earlier this week. But my filter floss is the issue I’m having, it’s clogging unusually fast and causing my ATO to trip, lowering my salinity. I feel like the slimes possibly still there just in smaller amounts that I’m not seeing in the actual tank

 

[Crustaceon]

Sounds like a bacterial colony in the filter floss. Just out of curiosity, how did you get your nitrates and phosphates so low before having to dose flourish to bring them back up?

 

[cracker]

I see, sorry if I missed that !

 

[Dustinryan2010]

Sounds like a bacterial colony in the filter floss. Just out of curiosity, how did you get your nitrates and phosphates so low before having to dose flourish to bring them back up?

I was doing 2 gallon weekly water changes consistently and not testing as often as I should, besides using phosguard I wasn’t doing much else. And even then I use that in tiny amounts.

 

[Crustaceon]

What I’m getting here is that the bacteria has found a stagnant area with a food source (trapped fish food bits) to set up shop, hence why it’s so localized. Here’s a thought: Why even run filter floss if you’re trying to get your nitrates up anyways and have that clogging issue caused by the floss? If it were me, I would ditch the floss and siphon my sand during water changes to get rid of excess detritus buildup.

 

[Dustinryan2010]

What I’m getting here is that the bacteria has found a stagnant area with a food source (trapped fish food bits) to set up shop, hence why it’s so localized. Here’s a thought: Why even run filter floss if you’re trying to get your nitrates up anyways and have that clogging issue caused by the floss? If it were me, I would ditch the floss and siphon my sand during water changes to get rid of excess detritus buildup.

I have an AIO aquarium with a media basket. I use disposable sheets of filter floss that I’m having to replace every few hours, they’re not permanent socks that could build up nutrients

 

[Crustaceon]

I have an AIO aquarium with a media basket. I use disposable sheets of filter floss that I’m having to replace every few hours, they’re not permanent socks that could build up nutrients

Bacteria grows extremely fast though and just a few specks of whatever landing on that floss could be exactly what the bacteria wants. Whatever is happening, that floss in the basket is the ideal spot for bacteria to grow like crazy and if nitrates and phosphates aren’t a problem, there really isn’t a reason to run mechanical filtration such as filter floss. Keep in mind many great tanks don’t use filter socks or any form of mechanical filtration, so using it isn’t a must by any means.

 

[Dustinryan2010]

Update.. added some ReefSpec carbon to my back chambers and since then I’ve seen no slime and my filter floss hasn’t clogged. Fingers crossed!

 

[Makers Marc]

Definitely looks bacterial. Make sure you refrain from using too much hand sanitizer before putting your hand in the tank. I used to make that mistake.

 

[Dustinryan2010]

Definitely looks bacterial. Make sure you refrain from using too much hand sanitizer before putting your hand in the tank. I used to make that mistake.

This must have been set off by handsoap, lotion candles or air freshener as I don’t use hand sanitizer often, if ever. Whatever was in there must have been removed by the carbon I added and the large amounts of Waste Away I’ve been adding every other day. Hoping that’s the case and this is the last of it, been a rough few weeks!

 

[RamsReef]

I had this crap.

Waste Away and API Algea Fix did it for me.