Bacteria bloom?

[Thunderstruck34]

Little bit of a backstory here, two weeks ago I had a newly added rock flower anemone die (was constantly moving due to a Jawfish relocating sand and rubble on top of it). I knew it wasn’t looking too hot when I left for work in the AM and the tank was cloudy and the anemone was dead when I returned in the evening.

I cut back on feeding and did a 25% water change that night and also ran a few tests. No detectable nitrates / nitrites but I noticed a huge alk swing (typically 9.2 to now 12.00). I switched salt from hw marine mix pro to IO reef crystals but didn’t expect such a huge swing with that change. Especially considering that I don’t dose.

I added a UV sterilizer on day 7 and that seemed to help clear up the water but it is still noticeably cloudy. Additionally, I have this stringy, slimey, white stuff clinging to the surfaces of the tank, which I assume is bacteria.

yesterday (day 12) I did a small 10% waterchange in an attempt to bring down the alk more. Am I going crazy? Are bacteria blooms and alk swings correlated?

 

[A_Blind_Reefer]

I’m not much help on the cloudy and stringy stuff, but it sounds bacterial. As for the alk swing, those two salts are completely different alk wise. Reef crystals is very high. I would choose a salt that better matches what you want or doctor it up/down as needed.

 

[Thunderstruck34]

I’m not much help on the cloudy and stringy stuff, but it sounds bacterial. As for the alk swing, those two salts are completely different alk wise. Reef crystals is very high. I would choose a salt that better matches what you want or doctor it up/down as needed.

Yep. Just an unfortunate oversight on my part on the alk. I also learned that the alk is not consistent throughout the mix. Alk for a different batch I prepared was sitting at 9.6. Yeesh.

 

[Ef4life]

When I had a similar bloom waterchanges always made it worse. I can’t honestly what I did to stop it, but i think it was time, bacteria consumed all of whatever it was using and died off.

Edit - and I basically had to stop using filter socks/pad for the duration, it just clogged up with slime In a few hours.

 

[Ef4life]

Funny this popped back up in my notifications. I’m going through another bacterial bloom right now. 100% clean your pumps and power head ASAP - if the slime slows them down enough your fish will suffocate. All mine overnight were barely working by morning and my yellow tang was white and gasping for air. Corals don’t seem to be really effected too much, a little ticked but should be fine once it’s under control again

 

[b0bburg3r]

Funny this popped back up in my notifications. I’m going through another bacterial bloom right now. 100% clean your pumps and power head ASAP - if the slime slows them down enough your fish will suffocate. All mine overnight were barely working by morning and my yellow tang was white and gasping for air. Corals don’t seem to be really effected too much, a little ticked but should be fine once it’s under control again

Same problem I seem to be having keep me posted if you find a fix.

 

[Thunderstruck34]

So it eventually got pretty nasty. I was able to resolve the issue within 10 days by dosing Dr. Tim’s refresh (1 capful per 10 gallons every other day for 10 days) and then Dr. Tim’s waste away.

Everything that I researched pointed to white slime bacteria due to VOCs in the air (air fresheners etc. which I didn’t have but who knows).

Unfortunately at the end of June we had a really bad storm that resulted in a power outage for a few days. I was out of town for work and wasn’t able to make arrangements for someone to hook up the generator for a day so I ended up losing about 70% of my corals and a few fish. White slime came back with a vengeance after that.

I did some pretty large water changes when I got back home and started up another Dr. Tim’s dosing routine since it worked great the first time. Sadly that didn’t have any impact on the white slime the second round.

From July through September my tank was pretty depressing. Nothing made a dent in the white slime.

What finally worked for me was one large water change in conjunction with removing a large portion of the live rock for a peroxide bath and subsequent peroxide dosing to the aquarium.

I’ve never experienced anything like it in my reef keeping journey and I wouldn’t wish it upon anyone. Hopefully the Dr.Tim’s or peroxide dosing fix that worked for me works for you.

 

[Ef4life]

Same problem I seem to be having keep me posted if you find a fix.

I’ve been trying to keep the nitrates and phosphates elevated lately by dosing, and feeding live phytoplankton.

my phosphates were usually always in a good range, but my nitrates would be 0, and by dosing some nitrate it would then drop my phosphate levels, it is a pain dosing nitrate and phosphate. I was basically dosing a ton of nitrate and finally started to get a reading and tapered the dose back down as it rose and stabilized a bit, I’m not currently dosing daily but will as needed with testing. It’s about 12 now. I only run a filter sock now before I scrape the glass or do weekly maintenance. No skimmer at all currently, replaced with an airstone instead. Removed my uv sterilizer too as I feel it was killing off the green film algae and allowing the slime to take over - the live phyto seems to be a good deterrent to the slime too, I fed it heavy at the start and tapered it down as I started getting green film algae growth vs clear slime on the glass.

I originally used reef nutrition live phyto, that seemed to really help the best, this last batch wasn’t live as the store was out and it didn’t seem to have the same effect, or maybe just more delayed effects in respect to the amount of pods/film I was seeing on the glass right away with the live vs days later with the non live. Obviously buying brand name live phyto isn’t cheap, and the amount I was/am feeding, makes it a short term solution to me so I’m going to look into setting up a grow out station to culture it myself in the near future