Howdy, gang. Happy Friday! I seem to find myself revisiting the situation once every few weeks where I have a very light white hairy/fuzzy film on my rocks. It's never bad enough for me to be too concerned about it, but it is annoying and fairly ugly in the tank. I usually only take action once I start to see it spread into my sump. This morning, I noticed some on the glass of my return section and on the return pump, so I thought I would take some pics and create a thread.
Snails and crabs don't seem to touch it, so I'm doubtful it's Calothrix or any other algae. With that being said, my position is that it's some bad bacteria that has found its home in the tank, consistently lives there, and eventually gets enough strength to multiply. I'm not currently dosing any carbon or bacterial additives, however I have dosed various Dr Tims products and Brightwell BioFuel in the past. I've probably made it through at least two water changes since I've added any of that stuff to my system. As far as bacterial control, I'm running a single Brightwell Biobrick sitting on the floor of my sump and a UV running at 45K µW/cm² for about 12 hours a day.
Have a look below and let me know if you agree with me that this is a bacterial imbalance:
Snails and crabs don't seem to touch it, so I'm doubtful it's Calothrix or any other algae. With that being said, my position is that it's some bad bacteria that has found its home in the tank, consistently lives there, and eventually gets enough strength to multiply. I'm not currently dosing any carbon or bacterial additives, however I have dosed various Dr Tims products and Brightwell BioFuel in the past. I've probably made it through at least two water changes since I've added any of that stuff to my system. As far as bacterial control, I'm running a single Brightwell Biobrick sitting on the floor of my sump and a UV running at 45K µW/cm² for about 12 hours a day.
Have a look below and let me know if you agree with me that this is a bacterial imbalance: