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View Full Version : white fuzz on my rocks....


jeremy K
07/24/2010, 08:06 PM
My tank has been up and running for almost 1.5 years now. I began vodka dosing this past November as well, and my nitrates and phosphates are undetectable. I have noticed, over the past few months, a white fuzz growing on all my live rock as well as on my powerheads. It is literally white, and is the length and consistency of peach fuzz. I no longer see much purple of coralline algae on the rocks - I don't know if this is because the purple colour is gone or because the fuzz is covering it.

My question - what is this stuff? Is it bacterial mass? Some sort of algae? What should I do about it? Should I stop dosing vodka? Should I scrape the rock? Should I leave well enough alone, since if this is bacterial mass, it is doing what I want the vodka to do? Any opinions would be welcome.

mike_cmu04
07/24/2010, 11:48 PM
It could be a sponge but more likely it is some kind of bacteria

sedor
07/25/2010, 12:11 AM
Sounds like bacteria which is VERY typical with vodka dosing. Basically that is what adding vodka to your tank is doing. Its feeding those bacteria so that can consume what you don't want in the tank and then they die off and get skimmed out. I have had to put up with them for a long time. Recently I got a reactor and started running WM Ecobak pellets, but there are a variety of choices on the market right now. Its the same concept as vodka dosing except it keeps all of that contained in a reactor so the bacteria doesn't have to grow all over your tank. For anyone that doses vodka, the new biopellets are something to seriously consider. IMO they are changing the way we reef.

jeremy K
07/25/2010, 03:59 AM
Sounds like bacteria which is VERY typical with vodka dosing. Basically that is what adding vodka to your tank is doing. Its feeding those bacteria so that can consume what you don't want in the tank and then they die off and get skimmed out. I have had to put up with them for a long time. Recently I got a reactor and started running WM Ecobak pellets, but there are a variety of choices on the market right now. Its the same concept as vodka dosing except it keeps all of that contained in a reactor so the bacteria doesn't have to grow all over your tank. For anyone that doses vodka, the new biopellets are something to seriously consider. IMO they are changing the way we reef.

Fair enough, this is what I thought was going on. But now that the bacterial fuzz is there, what can I do about it (short of switching to biopellets, which I am not ready to do yet). Should I scrape these off the rocks, or cut the vodka dose?