clear/white mucus/slime in tank help

I am having the same problem. My system is a little over a year old and about a month and a half ago this stuff just started growing like CRAZY. All of my parameters are with in acceptable ranges. I am siphoning it out and doing weekly water changes but this white slim always comes back with vengeance! I am at my wits end with this stuff. I am thinking about trying this hydrogen peroxide theory that seems to be floating around here. My lights are a DIY LED set up and the filtration for my 55 gal other than a sock filter is just a 40 gal Mangrove / Macro Tank that i have set up in series to each other. It has worked awesomely until this white slim exploded. Any feed back on what the guys did a couple of years ago to get rid of their issue would be greatly appreciated!!
 
Oh my god! Finally someone has the same problem that I had, and I had it bad. I had to clean the pipe because this slime would stick in the pipe and restrict flow. Wait until the slime gets a bit thicker and it will turn into this yellow crud and it won't budge until you remove it with physically. Do you dose any carbon source? Vinegar? Zeostart? I treated it with 1. daily dose of zeozyme for 10 days (this will turn your water yellow) 2. stop dosing carbon source 3. dose bacteria after 10 days and place lots GAC 4. Remove any slime you can find daily after the zeozyme dosing This is will slowly decrease the slime. Don't add anything with high level of nitrate. my parameters were zero nitrate and phosphate, so as an experiment I added KNO3 and the slime returns immediately.
 
this bacterial slime is due to high nutrients in the system. More nutrients more bacteria...can be because the rocks are loaded and when adding in any bioload it you tip the scales overboard. Poor cycling, too fast stocking..poor export are all contributors to this.
 
Just wanted to chime in on this. I'm just starting to notice a little bit of this "clear slime" on my new system, which was started with dry rock. I started the cycle with a raw shrimp and left them in there to decay completely. I watched my ammonia and nitrite/nitrates peak out over a 4-week period and I did the standard water change to reduce nitrates. In turn, diatoms started showing up on the rock and sand -- still standard. The only live stock in the tank is a single test coral (a chalice) and some amphipods that were added to seed the fuge and display.

I did the second water change two nights ago and noticed a really small amount of this clear slime coming off the rock as I was trying to siphon off some of the diatoms. This morning, the slime was showing up on some of the other rocks.

Currently running the skimmer only -- no other filtration. I removed the filter socks and some carbon that I was running passively after initially adding the rock/sand.

I'm testing again tonight and will start siphoning it out via small partial water changes.
 
Here's a quick video to show you what I'm looking at:



I ran some tests and, althought I'm not a fan of this API test kit, I read this as saying the ammonia levels are between 0 and 0.25ppm and the other levels are at (or near) 0. Agree?

DSC_7896.jpg


I haven't tried siphoning it out yet. Any thoughts or comments would be appreciated.
 
How long has it been since the ammonia hit zero? I might not worry much just yet. Also, how big was the chunk of shrimp?
 
Thanks for checking in Jonathan. Just went back and checked my notes. Ammonia hit zero on 12/2 and it was a two shrimp that were about 1". In fact, I even took a picture :)

DSC_7731.jpg


Right now, like you said, I'm not worrying too much and not planning on making any drastic changes -- simply chalking it up to "new-tank" syndrom -- but it's something that I hadn't experienced in the past and I was having trouble finding information on (except for this thread). If there's some other information that would help, please let me know.
 
I think it's likely just new tank syndrome. :) I just wanted to know approximately how long the tank has been settling in.
 
Figured I'd report if anyone ever comes across this thread wondering what to do. My solution was, wait for it, NOTHING! Chalk it up to new tank syndrome -- mine cleared up after a week or so. Just did my regular weekly water changes and it went away on it's own.

Happy reefing! :)
 
Buzz1329 said:
Are all of you having this problem using "dry rock"?
Click to expand...

Not to resurrect an old thread, but I started my tank in December with Marco Rock (150lbs), cycled for almost two months, and about seven months in this is accumulating every so slightly in my fuge, on the surface, and just kinda drooping down. I absolutely am having nutrient issues, and really nothing else is explaining it besides this darn rock.

While the marco rock is beautiful, and allowed us to create pillars just how we wanted, I wish we were able to "cure" this properly for an extended period of time.
 
I have the same problem

I have the same problem

I have the same clear white stuff growing on the inside of my return hose from the sump. Every time I stop and restart the return pump, it would shoot a lot of white gunk out of the hose into the display tank. Many people have this problem with canister filters on their freshwater tanks but mine is a saltwater FOWLR tank.

Please see the link for a picture of some gunk inside the clear return hose.
https://www.dropbox.com/s/0vyuorpod4ynifb/White gunk.jpg

Anyone knows what this stuff really is? It seems to diminish if I put PhosGuard in. Is it diatom feeding on silicate?

Thanks
 
late to the party on this one but I also have this issue, going to try the dr. tims method and see if it works. Another interesting thing was that I noticed pineapple sponges appeared the same time this slime appeared. Not sure it is related or not.

Only coral negatively affected has been my green star polyps luckily
 
I just started my 20g on Saturday with dry rock and last night I noticed a dome of slime the size of a nickel. It almost looks like a big spider egg sack. I don't know if it's part of the process since I started with dry rock or what but I'm hoping it doesn't grow too much over time.
 
So I have this slime too. It stringy whitish snot like slime. It started off in my invert qt which only had inhabitants for about two weeks. The slime actually didn't start until a 2-3 weeks after all corals where removed. It eventually made it to the display tank about 2-3 week after I added the corals. The snot started floating everywhere and my water started getting cloudy. pH started dropping from 8.3 avg to 7.8 avg in about a week. I assumed it was a bacterial outbreak. I looked all over to find more about it. About all I could find was that it could be from using air freshners and stuff. I opened my windows all day and night for two days and both tanks cleared up 100% by the end of the second day. I closed up my windows after that and about 4 days later I'm noticing a couple snot strings. Hopefully it won't be another outbreak. I'm thinking that maybe the coral I got had some kind of bacteria on it.

Invert qt was only 1 month old and had its first and only coral inhabitants for about 2 weeks. Display tank is maybe about 4-5 months and just got its first coral inhabitants once they were removed from qt. My fish qt that has been set up for about 5-6 months and has no slime.
 
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have the same problem

have the same problem

hello I have a 200 gallon saltwater tank with live rock and fish I also have that same hair like slime and I lost five fish. my par are close to perfect. what is it and how do I git rid of it I am losing a fish a day.please help
 
What parameters have you measured? The fish losses might be due to disease. Do you see any symptoms common to all the fish that you lost?
 
Yes, most ammonia test do show total ammonia after detoxifiation treatments. some show small amounts of ammoia in false positive reading. Some are distorted upward by just a little nitrate.
That slime looks bacterial to me but I can't know unless someone puts it under a microscope .Siphoning it and skimming should help .Running granulated activated carbon might help. On the link you read about lights out did they identify it conclusively?
 
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