clear/white mucus/slime in tank help

[sculpin2]

Sounds like someone needs to do some experiments to determine the specific factor leading to the Alcaligenes population boom that seems to have become common recently. Perhaps setting up various tanks (with/without dry rock, with/without organics containing salt, with/without exposure to VOC's) and see which is the factor that most contributes to the bacterial bloom.

[jshepherd]

Originally Posted by sculpin2

Sounds like someone needs to do some experiments to determine the specific factor leading to the Alcaligenes population boom that seems to have become common recently. Perhaps setting up various tanks (with/without dry rock, with/without organics containing salt, with/without exposure to VOC's) and see which is the factor that most contributes to the bacterial bloom.

I have had a tank running since 2008 and never wanted to quit more than when this happened.

I did have a tank failure on my 150g and moved to a new 300DD and this was about 6 months after that. It does not explain the QT tanks though. We do live in the country with a lot of farmers fields near us and we do use well water. In the winter I will try to set up 2 QT tanks one with each brand of salt and see if I can find an answer. I do like the coral pro salt and would love to use it again.

[tmz]

Are you sure it's Alcaligenes bacteria? I didn't think they used carbohydrates( organic carbon sources).

[jshepherd]

Originally Posted by tmz

Are you sure it's Alcaligenes bacteria? I didn't think they used carbohydrates( organic carbon sources).

I am just going off of pictures.

[Lindz]

Alcohol/ perfume/ air fresheners? Just an idea: http://pets.thenest.com/white-slime-...ium-13087.html

[Aquamechanic]

The barrel of freshwater I had turning with a power-head in the basement below where the aquarium is located developed a similar film on the surface around the same time as my tank. I have even bleached the barrel and it re-develops in a week. The barrel has been running for at least 5 years without issue preceding this.

Coincidence?

[sculpin2]

Without a specific culture, no, you cannot be sure. However, having implicated this bacterial species before, it's definitely possible that this could be the culprit again.

[tmz]

It may be or may not be. But i think the connections some have offered to organic carbon would not be the case with this species. I must have missed it . Where was it implicated before?

[sculpin2]

See article:

http://www.coralmagazine-us.com/cont...slime-part-iii

[tmz]

Thanks for the article.

It would be nice to know what the product being marketed in it is made of but I understand proprietary stuff. How they identified the species of bacteria is unclear? The general idea of competition via enhancing heterotrophic bacteria via this product or various forms of organic carbon dosing makes some sense for autotrophic bacteria limitation if that's indeed what the slime is.

[jshepherd]

Originally Posted by tmz

Thanks for the article.

It would be nice to know what the product being marketed in it is made of but I understand proprietary stuff. How they identified the species of bacteria is unclear? The general idea of competition via enhancing heterotrophic bacteria via this product or various forms of organic carbon dosing makes some sense for autotrophic bacteria limitation if that's indeed what the slime is.

I did try the Dr Tim's with no success. My 30g container of top off has never slimed up though.

I am starting up another QT with the RC salt so I am interested to see if the results change vs the Red Sea salt.

[StrangeDejavu]

Originally Posted by jshepherd

I tried to find something consistent that would have caused it in all of the tanks and that was water or salt. I changed my RO membranes, filters and always kept fresh Di resin so I ruled that out.

I then switched BACK to Reef Crystals from the Red Sea coral pro and within a few weeks it was completely gone. I really do not have an answer as to why but for now I am staying with the RC.

Funny you say that, I use RSCP too. I've been dealing with this for about a month now. Long, stringy, snotty growth that waves from the rock. It grows on everything. Overflow, powerhead, clogs my return pump, clogs my sump sock. If I slip up even for a day on rotating my sump socks with this stuff, then the sponge in my Eheim 1260 becomes completely clogged, throwing off my water levels. Beananimal overflow will run dry, sucking in air and gurgling, return in sump will be flooded and my Tunze ATO alarm will go off. When this happens, evaporation takes place in my external box and the salinity climbs, since the return level stays the same/rises preventing auto top off of freshwater. This stuff is really evil.

In the beginning, I thought okay, it's probably something in the rock and it will just run its course. A few years experience in freshwater has taught me "when in doubt, water change". I started doing 20 - 25% weekly WCs. Two weeks ago, I spent 6 hours cleaning every nook of rock in my tank. I blew the rocks off with a powerhead, turned my RW-4s up on max to keep it suspended in the water column, and did a water change via pump in the display. I figured I could make a big dent in its population by removing it directly. I skimmed wet, emptied the cup daily and rotated filter socks regularly. Tank was CLEAN clean when I was done. Despite my best effort, it was back with a vengeance in 48 hours, worse than before. With each water change, I notice an explosion of growth. I cleaned the sponge in my return pump last Saturday (10/3) and Monday morning (10/5) I woke up to my Tunze ATO alarm going off again. This goes against everything i've ever learned in the aquarium hobby, i'm completely stumped. I bought Dr. Tim's Waste Away after reading that article and began dosing on 10/3. I did two half doses per the article and today was the first full dose. I've noticed more of the stringy snot floating in the water, like it's dislodging from the rock on its own. Coincidence? I'm not sure but I really, really hope it's working. This is such a discouraging thing to go through after being so excited to get into reefing. I accumulated gear over months and was chomping at the bit to get my tank up and running. Now that it is, it just seems like a never ending game of tank maintenance that leads to worse growth than the day before. My parameters are in check, no detectable PO4 per Hanna, 1 or 2 ppm nitrate per Salifert, Ca Alk and Mag all great, no algae growth besides a few streaks of diatoms. So frustrating.

Here it is in my tank. It has since doubled, even tripled, in size and amount since this video 3 days ago.

[jshepherd]

Originally Posted by StrangeDejavu

Funny you say that, I use RSCP too. I've been dealing with this for about a month now. Long, stringy, snotty growth that waves from the rock. It grows on everything. Overflow, powerhead, clogs my return pump, clogs my sump sock. If I slip up even for a day on rotating my sump socks with this stuff, then the sponge in my Eheim 1260 becomes completely clogged, throwing off my water levels. Beananimal overflow will run dry, sucking in air and gurgling, return in sump will be flooded and my Tunze ATO alarm will go off. When this happens, evaporation takes place in my external box and the salinity climbs, since the return level stays the same/rises preventing auto top off of freshwater. This stuff is really evil.

In the beginning, I thought okay, it's probably something in the rock and it will just run its course. A few years experience in freshwater has taught me "when in doubt, water change". I started doing 20 - 25% weekly WCs. Two weeks ago, I spent 6 hours cleaning every nook of rock in my tank. I blew the rocks off with a powerhead, turned my RW-4s up on max to keep it suspended in the water column, and did a water change via pump in the display. I figured I could make a big dent in its population by removing it directly. I skimmed wet, emptied the cup daily and rotated filter socks regularly. Tank was CLEAN clean when I was done. Despite my best effort, it was back with a vengeance in 48 hours, worse than before. With each water change, I notice an explosion of growth. I cleaned the sponge in my return pump last Saturday (10/3) and Monday morning (10/5) I woke up to my Tunze ATO alarm going off again. This goes against everything i've ever learned in the aquarium hobby, i'm completely stumped. I bought Dr. Tim's Waste Away after reading that article and began dosing on 10/3. I did two half doses per the article and today was the first full dose. I've noticed more of the stringy snot floating in the water, like it's dislodging from the rock on its own. Coincidence? I'm not sure but I really, really hope it's working. This is such a discouraging thing to go through after being so excited to get into reefing. I accumulated gear over months and was chomping at the bit to get my tank up and running. Now that it is, it just seems like a never ending game of tank maintenance that leads to worse growth than the day before. My parameters are in check, no detectable PO4 per Hanna, 1 or 2 ppm nitrate, no algae growth besides a few streaks of diatoms. So frustrating.

This sounds exactly what I went through. I would take the sump completely apart, clean the return pump, skimmer scrub everything do a change and it would come back the same or worse in less than a week. The only change I did after not getting results was to go back to Reef Crystals.

I still have coral pro and love the way it mixes but I am too paranoid to try it again for a long time.

A few other things that I noticed was my filter socks ( brand new and rinsed in DI ) would get plugged within a day, the sponge in my QT tank Aqua Clear 70 filter plugged up bad enough that it pushed the lid off and poured the water onto the floor.

[StrangeDejavu]

Originally Posted by jshepherd

This sounds exactly what I went through. I would take the sump completely apart, clean the return pump, skimmer scrub everything do a change and it would come back the same or worse in less than a week. The only change I did after not getting results was to go back to Reef Crystals.

I still have coral pro and love the way it mixes but I am too paranoid to try it again for a long time.

A few other things that I noticed was my filter socks ( brand new and rinsed in DI ) would get plugged within a day, the sponge in my QT tank Aqua Clear 70 filter plugged up bad enough that it pushed the lid off and poured the water onto the floor.

Yup, that was me the other morning. The sump sock I put on before dinner the previous night had clogged and leaned against the edge of the sump, pouring the water onto the carpet. That with the ATO alarm right out of bed on a Monday morning was not my idea of fun, lol. Well that's good at least about Reef Crystals. I feel like I have an option now if Dr. Tim's doesn't work. What I keep going back to was the day I filled my tank. The whole salinity and mixing thing was confusing and I just couldn't get it right at first. I made excess water so I kept topping off with that excess saltwater from my first batch. By the second day, I went to get some out of my Brute and it had a snotty slime that you usually get when water sits too long without movement. I thought nothing of it, decided to dump it. Makes me wonder if that slime I saw in the water was what we're seeing in the tanks. And if so, i'd say it's pretty isolated at that point. Empty, brand new Brute trashcan with RODI 0 TDS water and RSCP salt mixed in. We'll see, i'll keep this thread updated as the days pass.

I just took another video, this is the growth as of today:

[StrangeDejavu]

An update for anyone still following this thread:

Making some progress finally. The yellow sludge that coated every surface of my tank is retreating thanks to Dr. Tim's Waste Away. Every baffle, glass pane, rock surface was yellow from this slime I was battling. Even the body on the skimmer that was directly in the water was yellow. I've been dosing per the Coral article (minus the Refresh) and i'm seeing big improvements. The dry rock is no longer slimy like an ice cube, glass is becoming clear again and skimmate isn't such a concentrated yellow/brown color anymore. I'm still battling the stringy bacteria but even this seems to have eased some, not a whole lot, but some. My tank has also been cloudy since the day I started dosing Dr. Tim's, so I can't say for sure if this is related to the problems or not. I'll post another update in a few days.

[bertoni]

That sounds like great progress! It's always hard to be sure what's happening in our tanks, but I'm glad your setup is getting better, whatever the cause.

[ZeeSparrow]

Glad to hear it! Here's hoping you found a solution!

[AugustWest]

Would a product like Chemiclean, used for Cyanobacteria , possibly be effective against this white slime bacteria?

[StrangeDejavu]

Whatever the cause, i'm glad things are looking up.

Originally Posted by AugustWest

Would a product like Chemiclean, used for Cyanobacteria , possibly be effective against this white slime bacteria?

I'm following a girl on Instagram that's dealing with this as well but it's way, way worse than any case i've ever found in archived posts or Google. She did Chemiclean, 5 day blackout in case it was photosynthetic, UV, siphoned the sandbed, monster water changes, ReFresh & Waste Away, AlgaeFix, kalk to 8.4 pH, spot dosing with hydrogen peroxide, etc. She finally gave up, broke the tank down, nuked everything with bleach and is in the process of starting over. Whatever it is, it is Satan, lol.

[kgravity]

Originally Posted by Aquamechanic

*bump

In case anyone from this thread has had any revelations they didn't post as updates I wanted to bring this thread back to the top. I have started and replied to other threads in further effort to keep this topic going in hopes that someone has come up with a cause and solution.

My case, the tank is several years old (not NTS) and nutrients on selifert tests are NO3=0, PO4=0.25 (lowered from 1 with GFO).

Slime did not occur when nutrient levels were higher. There were 'spaghetti like' sponges or tube worms inhabiting the sump that I removed during sump cleanup a year ago that had been there for a few years. Never a problem.

Since then (approx) no fish have been added, nutrients are reduced as above and slime is perpetual despite weekly husbandry.

The VOC theory is intriguing but I have not moved forward on the solution outlined using Dr. Tim's or similar product.

Any new info?

Mine was completely resolved as soon as I switched to ESV salt.

My tank was well over a year old and and I do not use any air freshners or any other airborn chemical in my house not even cologne or spray on deoderant so I took those off the table. I was running close to ULNS in my system at the time so I also knocked out any carbon sources and still had the issue. When it was suggested to me earlier in this post to check out a different salt because of reef crystals organics I went to ESV since it seemed the most pure I could get my hands on. Immediatly the problem was solved, and has been for several months. I even did an experiment and switched back to RC for a water change, ok not really an experiment I was just out of ESV Salt and had a bag of RC laying around. Immediately got my slime back.

So Im not saying RC is a problem for every tank because other people seemed to have solved their problem by switching to it, Just whatever the biochemisty is in my tank it seems to have issues.

[Aquamechanic]

I have made no progress using all suggested methods save one. I am going to switch to EVS salt from Kent I have been using (for years) and see if that is the silver bullet.

Thanks to all that have posted their experiences and possible solutions.

[Fishingpcola]

I have been battling this same white slime for years. Comes back after every tank tear down. I've bleached the rock, gave it an acid bath. Comes back every time. I too have used Marco rock. Is dry rock the common denominator?

[Aquamechanic]

In my case unfortunately, it is natural Fiji live rock in a tank that has been running for 10 years+ without major issues. I did have a meltdown but not a crash 2 years ago this Christmas in an ice storm power failure. Some coral and fish survived and the tank built up well until around June this year. Since then it has been a major handicap to the success of this 90G tank.

[jshepherd]

My 300DT is fine now but starting a QT from scratch (using reef crystals) it has come back in the Qt to the point I cannot leave it alone for a few days or the filter will plug up with "snot"

I am at my wits end trying to find something that has changed. The only thing I really can think of is the source water but I never let it go above 0 tds and keep my filters and membranes fresh. The source water sits in my top off tank and never gets any slime.

[kgravity]

Just for the record my dry rock was from tampa bay saltwater.