Has anyone found a cure for white slime?

[Livio]

Hello guys,

I have been battling white slime for about 6 months and I am about to throw the towel on the hobby because of this nasty thing.

In March of this year I set up my second saltwater tank (about 75G) from scratch and I immediately got this weird bacteria bloom (cloudy water) even before adding the salt. I did not pay too much attention to it - having been in the freshwater hobby for many years, I had seen many bacteria blooms - so I just popped in my UV sterilizer and thought nothing of it.

I then added the dry rock, some snails and some easy coral from my other tank along with nitrifying bacteria and waited for the cycle to start. In less than 2 weeks, I got this stringy white mucus and after doing some research, I understood I have white slime - some say it's a bacteria named Alcaligenes Faecalis, other say it's an unknown fungus - I do not know, but I think it is a bacteria.

What I do know is that nothing I have tried worked, namely:
- manual removal
- water changes (did not expect them to work, but tried it anyway)
- UV sterilizer
- Dr Tim's Waste Away + other probiotic bacteria brands
- antibiotics
- hydrogen peroxide (kills it but it comes back)
- Salifert Flat worm exit (saw this on youtube at reefgrrl and thought I might give it a try)
- you name it, I even put yeast in the tank at one point

During these months I of course infected my other tank by accident and now both my tanks have it. The other tank is an older established tank so it's not so bad there as in the new one, but corals are starving due to this bacteria.
At times it seems to go away for a couple of days but it always comes back with a vengeance.

The problems with it are as follows:
- consumes oxigen, I already lost 2 fish in one episode (but fortunately this only happened once)
- unsightly
- water is permanently cloudy or with particles in it
- clogs up any mechanical filtration in a matter of hours
- consumes every bit of NO3 and PO4 and leads to coral starvation (for example in my new tank which is now 6 months I have never seen not one strand of any kind of algae as this bacteria outcompetes everything, I sometimes think it even feeds on the filter floss;
in my other tank no3 and po4 levels dropped to zero and remained there no matter what I do, I even started dosing no3/po4 but all I accomplished is only more white slime).

What you see in the following videos is 2 days worth of growth, I am cleaning it basically everyday now but getting very very tired and sometimes I think about putting bleach in the tank so that I can get rid of it once and for all)








Any help is highly appreciated.
I have read all I can read. There is no carbon dosing in the tanks nor any air freshner inthe room etc. We do use some alcohol disinfectant in an adjacent room due to the pandemic, but I have made an experiment where I fed it alcohol in a beaker and it did NOT grow so I do not know.

 

[Reefs and Geeks]

The only time I've ever had a similar slime is when I was carbon dosing alot to bring nitrates down. I'd have issue with it for a few weeks, then it would go away when I lowered my carbon dosing. Without carbon dosing in your tanks, I'm not sure what would cause that.

 

[Spare time]

I had this stuff when I was carbon dosing (nopox) and had a skimmer not properly functioning.

 

[Spare time]

Dr. Tim gave a talk at macna where he said that apparently air fresheners have been linked to this stuff popping up in aquariums.

 

[ReefBeta]

It did sound like the bacteria I got when I using bio pellets for carbon dosing. Nopox was said to cause the same. Vodka in my experience don't produce those. Your no3/po4 is brought to zero too. Did you introduce any source of carbon to the tanks? Try to look for any accidental source.

 

[Livio]

Thanks for the replies, there is no carbon dosing in these tanks and we do not use air freshners.

As I said, it originally appeared in my newly setup tank, within the first month - there was only water and rock in it, tank wasn't even fed.

 

[taricha]

- water is permanently cloudy or with particles in it
- clogs up any mechanical filtration in a matter of hours
- consumes every bit of NO3 and PO4 and leads to coral starvation (for example in my new tank which is now 6 months I have never seen not one strand of any kind of algae as this bacteria outcompetes everything, I sometimes think it even feeds on the filter floss;
in my other tank no3 and po4 levels dropped to zero and remained there no matter what I do, I even started dosing no3/po4 but all I accomplished is only more white slime).

I have seen persistent visible bacterial blooms in cases where there is some Carbon but very very low N & P, so that the organic carbon is not rapidly consumed even in fairly moderate amounts - it sticks around a while if there's little N & P. Even at low C levels the visible bacterial bloom can persist much longer than I would expect.

You are basically describing a persistently Carbon-excess system, and you have no idea what could be the source of Carbon.
Personally I would try two things. One for curiosity and one to maybe help shift things a bit.
1) pull out a gallon or so and dose N and P to see how strong and cloudy the bloom gets. (I can't think of any other way to estimate the amount of excess C, and it might be dangerous to try in your system.
2) I see most of the growth happening at the filtration system. What if you shut those down for an hour or two while feeding (adding N and P) so that maybe the N and P will stay in the system a bit more and not go straight to that ravenous bacteria reactor that is in your filter system.

Those are my ideas, but frankly I don't like them very much. Maybe @Dan_P has better ones.

 

[Livio]

@taricha
Yeah, obviously my first thought was an unidentified carbon source. I know for a fact that I am not the one adding it to the system, I've even tried not putting anything in the tank for more than 1 week, not food not even my hands. No change.
I leave the windows open during the night to aerate the room. No change.
I eliminated all mechanical filter media as it seemed to have an affinity for sponges / filter floss. No change.

I even considered that it is eating phtalates from the filter compartment walls, which are made of acrilic, but in my other tank there is only glass.

I remember reading a post by Randy Holmes somewhere saying that it may eat other bacteria, including nitrifying ones. When I used dr Tim's waste away for the first time it actually seemed to get worse, I had to pull out the fish as they started acting weird and I feared oxygen depletion (I only added about 1/5th recommende dose).

This bacteria is nothing if not the devil.

PS my filter compartment seems that it's more affected only because it's more difficult for me to clean, that'all. The videos are actually several weeks old, I have removed the sponges and egg crate since then.

One thing I've noticed happening during these months is that it's retreating from rocks, probably there is a bacterial film on them that prevents it from attaching. It's mostly present on the walls and equipment and it appears on anything that is new in the tank, including rocks.

It's relatively easy to blow off with a turkey baster, the problem is that it grows back within 1-2 days, the growth is absolutely scary fast.

I will try your idea at point 1, thanks for suggesting.

 

[Dan_P]

I have seen persistent visible bacterial blooms in cases where there is some Carbon but very very low N & P, so that the organic carbon is not rapidly consumed even in fairly moderate amounts - it sticks around a while if there's little N & P. Even at low C levels the visible bacterial bloom can persist much longer than I would expect.

You are basically describing a persistently Carbon-excess system, and you have no idea what could be the source of Carbon.
Personally I would try two things. One for curiosity and one to maybe help shift things a bit.
1) pull out a gallon or so and dose N and P to see how strong and cloudy the bloom gets. (I can't think of any other way to estimate the amount of excess C, and it might be dangerous to try in your system.
2) I see most of the growth happening at the filtration system. What if you shut those down for an hour or two while feeding (adding N and P) so that maybe the N and P will stay in the system a bit more and not go straight to that ravenous bacteria reactor that is in your filter system.

Those are my ideas, but frankly I don't like them very much. Maybe @Dan_P has better ones.

Just today I removed some white slime (quite feathery in places. I am dosing vinegar) and took a look at it under the microscope. Boy was I surprised.

I expected to see unrecognizable gelatinous stuff but Instead found a complex community of filamentous organisms. After staining with methylene blue, I could make out rod like organisms, but long narrow filaments were the dominant structure. Interspersed throughout this community were cyanobacteria filaments and what appeared to be other photosynthetic filamentous organisms. This is reminiscent of very nasty cyanobacteria mats that take over aquariums, a dominant species in a complex ecosystem that seems to be self-sustaining.

if you have access to a microscopem try to get clear photos of several samples of the slime. Is yours different from mine?

This white slime community might be recycling nutrients or at least sharing what each other needs.Even so, the community still needs some sort of energy input to grow so vigorously. For a cyanobacteria infection, light provides the energy that supplies the organic carbon and oxygen to the community. I have no idea whether a black out would disrupt your white slime growth. I wonder what happens to the white slime in the dark? @taricha might be able to design some simple experiments that don’t require lab equipment for this test and avoids turning your aquarium into a biology experiment.

interesting that you were able to infect your other system (sorry to hear It though). We would have to hear more about how that might have happened before that bit of information was helpful.

 

[Dan_P]

Hello guys,

I have been battling white slime for about 6 months and I am about to throw the towel on the hobby because of this nasty thing.

In March of this year I set up my second saltwater tank (about 75G) from scratch and I immediately got this weird bacteria bloom (cloudy water) even before adding the salt. I did not pay too much attention to it - having been in the freshwater hobby for many years, I had seen many bacteria blooms - so I just popped in my UV sterilizer and thought nothing of it.

I then added the dry rock, some snails and some easy coral from my other tank along with nitrifying bacteria and waited for the cycle to start. In less than 2 weeks, I got this stringy white mucus and after doing some research, I understood I have white slime - some say it's a bacteria named Alcaligenes Faecalis, other say it's an unknown fungus - I do not know, but I think it is a bacteria.

What I do know is that nothing I have tried worked, namely:
- manual removal
- water changes (did not expect them to work, but tried it anyway)
- UV sterilizer
- Dr Tim's Waste Away + other probiotic bacteria brands
- antibiotics
- hydrogen peroxide (kills it but it comes back)
- Salifert Flat worm exit (saw this on youtube at reefgrrl and thought I might give it a try)
- you name it, I even put yeast in the tank at one point

During these months I of course infected my other tank by accident and now both my tanks have it. The other tank is an older established tank so it's not so bad there as in the new one, but corals are starving due to this bacteria.
At times it seems to go away for a couple of days but it always comes back with a vengeance.

The problems with it are as follows:
- consumes oxigen, I already lost 2 fish in one episode (but fortunately this only happened once)
- unsightly
- water is permanently cloudy or with particles in it
- clogs up any mechanical filtration in a matter of hours
- consumes every bit of NO3 and PO4 and leads to coral starvation (for example in my new tank which is now 6 months I have never seen not one strand of any kind of algae as this bacteria outcompetes everything, I sometimes think it even feeds on the filter floss;
in my other tank no3 and po4 levels dropped to zero and remained there no matter what I do, I even started dosing no3/po4 but all I accomplished is only more white slime).

What you see in the following videos is 2 days worth of growth, I am cleaning it basically everyday now but getting very very tired and sometimes I think about putting bleach in the tank so that I can get rid of it once and for all)








Any help is highly appreciated.
I have read all I can read. There is no carbon dosing in the tanks nor any air freshner inthe room etc. We do use some alcohol disinfectant in an adjacent room due to the pandemic, but I have made an experiment where I fed it alcohol in a beaker and it did NOT grow so I do not know.

Hey @brandon429! What are your ideas on the causes and cures of persistent white slime? Could rip cleaning work or is this a deeper matter?

 

[taricha]

Just today I removed some white slime (quite feathery in places. I am dosing vinegar) and took a look at it under the microscope. Boy was I surprised.

I expected to see unrecognizable gelatinous stuff but Instead found a complex community of filamentous organisms. After staining with methylene blue, I could make out rod like organisms, but long narrow filaments were the dominant structure.

A very similar white slime bloom I had was when I pushed vinegar dose higher and higher. Same description. Dominated by long colorless (surprisingly strong - there were a lot of them) filaments.

I have no idea whether a black out would disrupt your white slime growth. I wonder what happens to the white slime in the dark?

My vinegar-powered white slime grew great in dark tubes.

Hey @brandon429! What are your ideas on the causes and cures of persistent white slime?

This has happened a few times around here. Everyone says it must be a carbon source, but the OP has no idea what the carbon could be and is certain they aren't adding any. Look forward to brandon's thoughts here.

Maybe @Livio would list literally everything that goes into the system, Salt, additives, bottles, foods, media, etc etc. I bet we still wouldn't find any cryptic carbon that could account for it.
Yet, I'm convinced there's a relative Carbon excess in these case.

To revisit and refine what I was getting at in the last post, creating bacterial blooms in bottles. When the N & P were plentiful in the bottles, a carbon dose created a bloom that clouded and faded in a couple of days. Same bottles after N & P went very low, the same size carbon dose created a bacterial bloom that persisted as cloudy water for ~a week.
So maybe it doesn't need to be much carbon to drive a bacterial bloom IF the N and P are very low.

Another idea is that this tank is barebottom and maybe many other systems would grow this much bacteria under similar conditions, except in substrate where organisms might munch it, and not accumulate as much.

 

[Livio]

@taricha @Dan P
thank you guys, your input is very valuable, I'm starting to consider things I've never thought about until now

I expected to see unrecognizable gelatinous stuff but Instead found a complex community of filamentous organisms. [...] a dominant species in a complex ecosystem that seems to be self-sustaining.

That is exactly my feeling about it after all this time, that it's somehow a community of organisms that is self sustaining and even recycling its own waste, rather than just one organism.

This idea is supported by the fact that it very slightly changed appearance over time and that in my second aquarium it looks a bit different, it is not so much strings of furry mucus but sheets of non-furry mucus, which would make sense if some organism(s) would be missing from the community due to the fact that is was outcompeted by existing bacteria in the old, established tank.

anyway let me share some more information and comments:

1. how I infected my other tank: most likely using a fish net or some other tool - it was early in the beginning, I thought about not sharing tools between tanks it but at the time it did not seem like a big problem and I was confident that the slime will not be able to take hold in the old, stable tank - boy was I wrong, I did some maintenance on both tanks one evening and the next morning I found 2 fish dead in the old tank and all the other creatures struggling for oxygen so I knew immediately what had happened

2. I went away on vacation for 1 week about a month ago and upon my return, the new tank seemed clear of slime.
I proceeded to clean the glass (there was some brown dust on it) and put in some filter floss and the next day the slime was back in full force, which was mind blowing.
So for the next week I tried replicating the feeding and dosing regimen from my vacation, in the hope that it will clear once again and of course that did not happen.

This suggests that our own presence in the house makes it grow, via an unknown carbon source, maybe. But apart from the sparse alcohol use at more than 10 meters away from the tanks, I have no other idea what it could be. Air conditioning was ON also during the vacation, feeding and dosing exactly the same (1 mysis cube every 3 days and some pellets daily via auto feeder).

3. Dr Tim's waste away seems to be feeding the slime. I know it sounds crazy, but I've added Dr Tim's several times with subsequent increase in cloudiness and slime, up to the point where I needed to take out the fish for fear of losing them to oxygen depletion, it was so bad that now I am afraid to use it. Please note that I've used 1/5 to 1/10 of the recommended dose.

4. I will list here all things that go in the tank, BUT PLEASE note that I've had the slime when nothing was in the tank except water and dry rock (pre-soaked for 2 months, then dried). Also, the water was cloudy immediately after adding fresh RODI water in the tank. Slime appeared about 2 weeks later after cloudiness appeared, during which time I added salt + rocks.

So although I may be inadvertently feeding the slime now, I am absolutely sure that nothing I put in the tank started it - almost sure it was airborn.

Also I showed these clips to some biologists and they said that it does not look like it's a saltwater specific organism, more like a freshwater one which took over my bio system (they could not help further).

here's what goes in the tank
- rodi water with tds ~ 2 - been using it for more than 3 years before the slime, no problem
- red sea salt (blue bucket) - also used before no problem
- 1 cube of mysis/ day, one sheet of Nori/ 2 days, a very small amount of pellet food (2 sortiments) / day
- Aquaforest KH, Ca and Marine salt (3 part balling method) + AF Component Strong (micro elements)
- some eggcrate and some plastic pots still in the tank (significantly less than when I started the tank as I pulled all non esential out over time)
- the internal sump is made of acrylic
- I've recently added some dry sand to increase surface area, it was of course covered in slime immediately, as I said any object that is newly added gets immediately covered
- filter media is a combination of matrix, siporax and marine pure
- phosphate remover (ATI PhosEx) is present in the tank now, but I also ran the tank without it and there was no impact on the slime, Phospate was still zero with or without it
- Aqua forest carbon
-I do have a skimmer (tunze 9004)

Other info
- Alk, Ca, Mg are in good ranges, N and P = undetectable
- PH I did not measure, I broke the probe
- tank gives off a faint smell when the mucus is in full swing - hard to describe it, like nothing I've ever smelled before, unlike any smell given by an aquarium that I've had in the past 15 years; it's a bit like a chemical sour smell
- corals are doing relatively ok, seem unaffected by the slime itself, but they are suffering from lack of N and P (discoloration)
- the slime has retreated in time from rocks, it now mostly attaches to glass and plastic
- 4 days ago I again started dosing antibiotics (ciprofloxacin) and it does have an effect: slime growth is reduced and slime also lost its "furriness"
so looks like there is a bacteria in this slime - not sure if only a bacteria, but definitely at least a bacteria; btw I've dosed this antibiotic before, the slime retreated but it came back

5. @Dan P - I do not have a microscope but I am willing to buy one, so could you let me know what is the minimum magnification needed? would 1200X suffice?

thank you

 

[brandon429]

Team I went back through our rip cleaning threads (drain tank, catch water, clean all surfaces with direct peroxide on surfaces, clean sandbed in tap water if sand is present, rasp off offending mass totally then reassemble tank and add back water or new water) and not one is a white slime challenge. We know that deep cleans are not harmful in the least, so if other approaches don’t work it would be great to get this tank taken down and put back up sans slime to see how it does.


cleaning a tank while it sits with water in it isn’t as thorough, it leaves cells in place. If this tank was mine, a 95$ pond sterilizer off amazon would be installed after a true rip clean. If the tank is too large to rip clean, then remove manually again and add the uv it’s my #1 go to

I know uv was tried here, but it’s not a pond sterilizer grossly oversized, which can be sent back if ineffective. I would only attempt uv in the manually clean condition, the benthic sponge isn’t going to get routed through uv as it sits in place.
UV wouldn’t help much with potentiated cells left on surfaces it’s a legit challenge agreed.


I found no prior examples of white slime work in our threads, new ground here am watching for updates then we can link this thread in the future to new posters

 

[brandon429]

* just brainstorming

what if you set up a test nano to get an idea of how a deep clean will go, at least a little idea


lift out a couple rocks and clean them manually, peroxide on the rocks after cleaning as direct application not a dip, work around any attached corals, rinse off, and set rock or test rocks in a glass container next to your reef and bubble it or circulate it other ways with a cheap heater. Let’s see how fast the new nano gets infected this is a nice mini model low work, saves whole tank blind experimenting


if you can assemble a little functioning nano off truly cleaned substrates from the ? tank we’ve made a little predictability ground

even a big glass tea pitcher could work, something clear and see through so we see mass buildup

dont nuke main tank until control using the substrates can be earned in the test setup

 

[taricha]

Great post, Livio
3 thoughts

boy was I wrong, I did some maintenance on both tanks one evening and the next morning I found 2 fish dead in the old tank and all the other creatures struggling for oxygen

As though you added an organism capable of digesting a food source already present in the tank that nothing before was digesting. That's a pretty rare thing to happen, and hard to replicate.

waste away seems to be feeding the slime. I know it sounds crazy, but I've added Dr Tim's several times with subsequent increase in cloudiness and slime

Not crazy. It's got a lot of carbon in the media, and bacteria in your system likely feed on it well.

third very speculative thought is about nori sheets.
"Carbon, nitrogen and phosphorus contents of cultured Nori (Porphyra yezoensis) that were sampled from Saga sea region of Ariake Bay, were measured. Carbon, nitrogen and phosphorus contents of the frond were 42.6=+-2.3, 8.6=+-0.8, 0.32=+-0.0ipg-at mg DW sup(-1) respectively, and the (mass) ratio was C : N : P=132 : 26 : 1."

If bacteria have a C N P mass ratio of somewhere in the ballpark of 20 : 4.6 : 1 (molar ratio 50:10:1) [pdf]

If these ballpark numbers are representative, then feeding nori and growing a lot of bacterial biomass (and exporting it) may be - on average - creating a carbon excess and an N & P limitation.

That's a little out there. I'm not comfortable with the idea of Nori as a carbon dose. Just hunting explanations.

 

[Livio]

Hi thanks for the replies. Alot to think about, I can for sure setup a nano as I have a smaller tank already cycled laying around, will have to think a bit about what exactly the scope of the experiment would be.

About rip cleaning ... I cannot clean it 100% so at the moment seems like a lot of effort with predicatble failure, this thing grows fantastically fast, there is no overstatement in comparing it to wild fire.

I will come back with the nano setup.

In the meantime, watch this clip of my other thank - yeaterday I added 5 ml of Dr. Tim's and now the water is very cloudy - before it was crystal clear. So I am not sure whether the cloudiness is dr tim's bacteria multiplying or the slime multiplying by eating Dr Tim's. Oxigenation was crancked up, fish are doing fine for the moment.

Recomended dose for dr tim's waste away is 10ml per 10 gallon and I added 5 ml per 40 gallon, so 1/8 of dose. Crazy.

 

[brandon429]

The nano setup shouldn’t have any cycled material in it, no filters no sand, only substrate transferred over as skip cycle from the main tank

even better find a way for current uv to go on it, it’s now oversized at this scale

 

[Livio]

As though you added an organism capable of digesting a food source already present in the tank that nothing before was digesting. That's a pretty rare thing to happen, and hard to replicate.

unless it's a predatory organism (which feeds on other bacteria or at least can switch between different food sources - by the way I read that Alcaligenes Faecalis - the suspect in my case - can degrade plastic)

Not crazy. It's got a lot of carbon in the media, and bacteria in your system likely feed on it well.

well, I did not know that, but that explains it, so Dr Tim's is out of the picture, too bad I dosed my other tank only yesterday dang it!

 

[Livio]

The nano setup shouldn’t have any cycled material in it, no filters, only substrate transferred over as skip cycle from the main tank

noted, will use a clean empty tank

 

[Dr Jimmy]

I've been working on something that might be similar. I'll add pictures. These span from July 1. The BTA was not a fan and has likely died. It got really mad when it bloomed (I'm guessing nutrient poor after bloom). It seems like it's getting better as of recently.

What I've done:
Raised skimmer and tried making skimmate more concentrated (it would randomly overflow, likely when a bloom was happening)
I used to change filter socks every 3 days... then they started filling every day, so I changed them daily. Then they filled faster. I added a flat compartment and pre-cut drop in sheets. I went through a phase where I was changing 200 micron filter sheets every 2 hours (as they had filled). I'm now changing twice a day so I take that as progress. Skimmer cup still gets 1/3 full every day.

I've been dosing NoPox (1-2 mL/day). I also dose bacteria once a week... Microbacter 7, Waste Away, TurboStart, and one other. Skimmer off during the 3 hours after that. I have a small amount of biopellets running as well. Every time I would dose carbon, the tank would remain cloudy. I forgot for around 36 hours and the water was crystal clear. During this time nitrate has read 0. I have not had any oxygen issues. I feed pretty heavily... I have two young kids that like feeding the tank before bed. The last two weeks, the tank doesn't really get cloudy after dosing carbon. My underlying assumption is that I'm heavily exporting whatever is feeding it right now. That and I have places (like the biopellet reactor and the filter media) where this stuff is preferring to grow. That's allowing me to export a lot of it so maybe I'm getting ahead of it.

I used a toothbrush on the rocks every week for a month. It's now been 3 weeks since doing that and I don't see a big growth back yet. I also siphoned the sand every 2-3 days with the drain end going through the filter sock.