clear/white mucus/slime in tank help

I thuought I ahd seen pictures likethat before:

Here are several links on it. It seems to follow organic additions like vinegar and is alternately identified as possible dinoflagelates, likely baterial ane perhaps a strain of cyano bacteia by Randy ans Boomer and one reference to Dr Schimek who reportedly said it was a cyano strain. In every case though the opinions and facts pointed to orgnic additions as the cause. In the op's case I'd guess the biriospira had something to do wtih it. I nthe other case orgnics from the dry rock may have. Here are the links fyi:

http://www.reefcentral.com/forums/showthread.php?t=961419&highlight=white+slime

http://www.reefcentral.com/forums/showthread.php?t=1000152&highlight=white+slime

http://www.reefcentral.com/forums/showthread.php?t=1585000&highlight=white+slime

I'd use extra gac and stiong skimming along with persistent removal.No water changes and limited to 0 feeding for starters.
 
all the fish I lost looked fine but I did notice the dog face hang out at top of tank before he died and the rest of fish just died 1 a day but they looked fine and all I notice is that clear hairy slime. I changed filter media and going to do a 30 percent water change today
 
my normal salt water test kit all was good ph,nitrate,nitrite,and amm all was good don't understand why I am loosing fish been up and running for 4-5 years all was well?
 
Sorry for you losses. I don't know why the fish are dying. Could be oxygen depletion from bacterial activity if the slime is bacterial . I don't recall any other reports of fish losses asocited with the slime though. Is your tank well aerated.?
 
I think this is going to be hard to diagnose. A fish staying near the water surface might mean oxygenation problems. Does the tank have a skimmer? I would make sure that there's plenty of flow and the water surface is rippling reasonable strongly, to prevent any surface buildups. You might want to ask in the fish disease forum, although I'm not sure they'll be able to help.

How much live rock is in the system? Can you post a picture?
 
So this is an old thread but I have the same issue but i feel like for different reasons.

My tank was set up with dry rock but its not a new tank. Its been running close to two years.

I have undetectable nitrates (salifert and api tested)
Undetectable phosphate (salifert)
Ca 420
Kh 10.2 (redsea)
Mg 1120

All corals are thriving (zoas, leather, lps and sps)

So to the problem after i do a waterchange (reef crystals with spectrapure filtered rodi water o- tds and one drop of prime per 5g for any residual chloramines)
I get a clear slime outbreak and the more water change i do the worse it gets.

Its driving me crazy because i cant find anyone with a similar problems everything seems to be nutrient related but my tank is spotless with no algae cyano or any otherkind of nutrient related signs. So it seems to me it has to come from the water change water or salt. Ive changed all my ro filters so the only thing left is the salt. I am still using the same salt from the same batch (200g box) but i havent heard anyone else have a similair issue and i dont really see it in the mixing container though pnce i have.
If anyone has any ideas i would love to hear them?!
 
That sounds like a bacterial bloom that's encourage by trace elements or fixed nitrogen from the freshly-mixed saltwater. You might be able to reduce the problem by general nutrient control, or by using a salt product without organics, like IO. Hard to say.
 
I didnt even know rc had any more organics than regular IO thats good to hear, well at least it helps narrow the hunt. My tank never has detectable nitrates in it either even if i go a few weeks with out a water change (ive double checked my tests with other tanks to make sure the kits are good). I wonder if the bacteria that causes this is in some sort of imbalance in this tank the slime looks a heck of alot like the mulm that came off my old tank bp reactor.
 
It's difficult to impossible to know why some tanks are prone to such bacterial blooms and others aren't. There are just too many factors. I can't help there.
 
*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?
 
The "sponges" and other feeders removed fro the sump may have been competing for the nutrients the slime is using now.Some occurrences slime like this seem to be linked to using uncured dead rock. There isn't much else that I can offer that hasn't been posted here or in the links in post 61.
 
I just went through this in all of my QT tanks and in the sump ( mainly ) in my 300 gallon display.

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. It was getting so bad that I had to take my sump apart and physically remove the globs of slime every week. The skimmer would even start to plug up.
 
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.
 
sculpin2 said:
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.
Click to expand...

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.
 
Are you sure it's Alcaligenes bacteria? I didn't think they used carbohydrates( organic carbon sources).
 
tmz said:
Are you sure it's Alcaligenes bacteria? I didn't think they used carbohydrates( organic carbon sources).
Click to expand...

I am just going off of pictures.
 

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