Strange white slime

[Neilc28]

Hi all,

I'm a new-user and have had a tank for approximately 3 months, it was previously established and so will be lookin* to make gradual changes as I get more confident, however over the past week I have had a couple of occurrences of white feathery slime showing in the tank.

The substance is looks like egg-white if you've ever cracked an egg in a boiling pan, I fish it out and everything looks ok, then randomly the next day or a few hours later another few bits appear out of nowhere flying around the tank.

I have the following:-

Boyu 250l tank
Tunze 9004 DOC Skimmer
Cannister Filter
Vortech MP40 Powerhead
21LEDUSA Lights (Soon to be replaced with Aquaray or similar)

Current livestock:-

A pair of mated clowns
Blue Devil Damsel
Cleaner Shrimp
3 Scarlet Hermits
3 other Hermits (black legged)
2 Super Turbo snails
Other snails (name evades me at the moment)
2 Kenya Tree's
Mushroom corals

10% water changes occur weekly

Current levels:-

PH: 7.9 (working on raising it)
Ammonia: 0
Nitrite: 0
Nitrate: 0>5
Salinity: 1.023
Temp: 25 Celsius
PO4: 0

All livestock seems happy and corals are blooming as per normal

Any advice to this would be much appreciated and please let me know if you require any other information.

 

[Neilc28]

Thanks in advance

 

[mcgyvr]

Looks like it might bacterial slime and or coral mucus but I'm leaning towards the first..

Many times the walls of the tubing on the canister filters will harbor a bunch of bacteria (good/beneficial bacteria) and every once in a while it will fall off from either power turning off/back on it just can't hold on anymore..

I wouldn't worry at all about it..

 

[BlueMoods]

I agree, probably bacterial slime, just about every surface in the tank and filtration system harbor good bacteria and, turning filtration or circulation off and on will knock some loose. Algae eaters will also free a bit as they pick at things, looking for algae.

I wouldn't be worried about it and, if it bothered me, just remove it manually as I could.

 

[Neilc28]

Sorted!

So it would appear that that the large white mass shown in the image had broken down whilst I was at work and been sucked through the filter. Checked the cannister and it was full of the slime.

Cleaned out and manually pumped the pipes to dislodge any remaining slime (there was loads!) Tank is looking a bit cloudy but hopefully will clear shortly.

Will check the filter again next weekend.

Thanks to all who commented, I was a little anxious being new to all this.

Cheers,

Neil