Hard spikey growths

[ladyshark]

Not sure if this is the right forum, but basically my tank has had extremely high phosphates and nitrates for a while. I decided to break it down after many failed attempts to correct the chemistry, thinking that the sand and rock was leaching phosphate.

At any rate, with such a nutrient rich environment, I ended up with a lot of sponge and a lot of prickly little spikes, hard, not soft, all over the tank, in my overflow, on rocks, etc.

I emptied the tank today and will be scrubbing it down to start over. Does anyone know what these prickly little hard growths are and what causes them? I assume the elevated nutrients are the main cause, but I would like to understand what they are.

I have searched and haven't found anything in the forums. Not sure what to even call them.

Any help appreciated.

TIA

 

[Calappidae]

Any pics?

How often do you water change? Do you run GFO? What water source are you using?

 

[ladyshark]

I will try to post a pic here

My mistake was letting someone maintain my tank without cleaning out bioballs over a long period of time, and trusting him to test params, and believing him when he said "no problems." I finally wised up and switched to a refugium with a much better skimmer. I was gaining ground on the nitrates, but started testing phosphates which were out of sight high. I ran gfo, did lots a major water changes, the phosphates kept coming back up. I think my sand bed, which is about 8 years old, just needed to go, and I decided to transfer the rock to an extra tank I had at home, treat the rock with lanthium chloride, and and put new sand and rock in my main tank.

so before I start up the main tank again, I am cleaning thoroughly and saw these spiky things all over the overflow, inside and out.

 

[Calappidae]

Looks like dead tubes of Feather duster worms to me but I'm not sure..

You never clean your bio-balls.

The bacteria needed to cycle our aquariums lives in the live rock and bio-media. That refugium was the best change yet. When you clean your bioballs, the bacteria has to go through a completely new cycle to keep up with the bio-load.. in other words you undid what you cycled your tank for. The dirtier the bio-media, the better! The nitrate is built up from this and contributes to any algae blooms you may have. Put some macro in that fuge, it will soak up them nitrates and phosphates!

No need to kill your rock.. just water change to keep the nutrients down, get a skimmer if you don't have it, and get a CUC.

 

[GhostCon1]

I am almost 100% certain those are vermitid snail homes.

Had the same thing in my 20L before I broke it down. I hated those things.

 

[Sugar Magnolia]

Yes, vermetid snails. They thrive in a nutrient dense environment.

 

[ladyshark]

Thanks Calappidae--I am aware you don't want to actually clean the bioballs, but there was gunk on them over time that probably should have been removed, and it became a nitrate factory. I think the refuge was a great idea, I did the macro, researched like crazy, read up on phosphate leaching from rock, old tank syndrome with the sand.

After research and consultation on these boards, I ended up treating the rock with Lanthium Chloride and put it in a new tank, and its my understanding that this does not harm the bacteria on the rock, so it is still live. The whole point of doing this was to keep the rock and simply put it in a separate tank to continue GFO and such until the phosphate issue dissipates (plus I get a new tank--ha!).

My main tank is for coral (was FOWLR) so the phosphates had to be managed. I am starting over with new sand, new live rock etc. Just wanted to know what these spikes were.

Thanks everyone else, I will research the vermetid snails