RickG
Active Member
Hey guys. So I currently have a white slim bacterial bloom that I got from dosing nopox. Wondering what you guys recommend to treat it. Currently trying to wet skim and stopped all nopox dosing. Any help will be appreciated
White slim bacterial bloom
- Thread starter RickG
- Start date
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Its usually common to me get this during carbon dosing. Excessive bacterial production. This tends to clump in low flow areas.
Elbow grease as in clean kit down, good water change and increase. Water movement as had been suggested.
Elbow grease as in clean kit down, good water change and increase. Water movement as had been suggested.
aumoenoav
Active Member
I hear this all the time. Nopox does this with overdosage. Try to remove everything you can manually, high flow and no more carbon dosing and it will go away in a couple of days. It can help to clean everything in the sump.
OP
OP
RickG
Active Member
Yup i increased water flow a bit, stopped Nopox , and wet skimming. Only minimal slime in display but have a bit in the sump. I have been siphoning what i can from the sump with a turkey baster and will siphon as much as i can when i do a water change later today
Tiger-Paws
Active Member
I have been fighting the white slime for months now. I changed salt to Tropic Marin, adding Vibrant and Waste & Away, feeding pellets only, manually cleaning rock, glass & sump. Wet skimming, fairly high water flow.
I am running UV and 3 to 4 hours of Ozone a day. My socks last 12 hours before clogging up with the slime, so I am changing them twice a day. I am using a 6 stage RO/DI system.
Right now the system is FOWLR.
There is NO algae growing anywhere, I am at a loss to understand what the stuff is feeding on?
Any suggestions are welcome.
Because you're doing everything it wants.
Vibrant will reduce nutrients as will waste away. Add to that wet skimming and low feed.
The reason you have no algae is because of the above and the white slime is bacterial based.
STOP dosing vibrant and waste away. I'd even unplug skimmer for a couple of weeks.
Feed more and dose some seachem flourish Phosphorous. Bring those levels up. After a few months you might get some green and the bacterial bloom subside.
Tiger-Paws
Active Member
Hum.... Interesting idea.
Not so much of an idea as to the actual problem. The products your dosing contain bacteria to break down N+P, when you reach very low levels and continuing to dose your adding more bio material to an already low nutrient system. This causes excess bacteria to accumulate.
Hence..... White slime.
The issue you will now have is raising nutrients as you have a heavy bio load of bacteria consuming those Nitrogen compounds. It will take time and some heavy handed dosing / feeding approaches to bring it up.
This isn't anything new either, products used to lower N+P have become increasingly popular and readily available yet are bringing there own set of issues because of the lack of understanding of them.
We're all Guinea pigs....
Once you raise those levels it will all subside.
Tiger-Paws
Active Member
Thank you for the suggestion and insite, I have been carefully considering what you have said and it is well worth a try.
I have just ordered a bottle of Seachem Flourish Phosphorous and while I am waiting for that to arrive (Saturday) I will perform a 5 gallon water change tomorrow, remove the UV and turn off the skimmer just before adding the Seachem and scrub as much of the slime off of the rock and glass as possible.
I will post results as I progress.
Oh and it will work, been there and got the t shirt.
Additionally low nutrients will encourage dinoflagellates and you don't want them. I'm just going through bout number 5.... Procentrum Lima. Lovely little critters. All brought about by a sludge removal. Though I knew I had them and anticipated the bloom.
Keep nutrients detectable and will keep the bacterial and protists at bay.
Believe me a bit of hair algae is good compared to the competition
jld
Active Member
interesting take like a lightbulb went off in my head - i am almost ready to tear tank down because of this stuff. OP and myself have same issue i believe.
i got the slime from moving 4 year old healthy mixed reef into a slightly larger tank with new rinsed sand bed. i added fritzzyme to new tank with sandbed. had an emergency so left new tank running for 3 days before i moved all old tank rock/corals over. i noticed the water looked hazy in new tank but did it anyway. prob where it started too much bottle bacteria in a sterile tank.
2 weeks later white flowing slime shows up clogs filter floss every 6 hours or so. slime grows in sump area and all high flow plumbing within a week. clean glass it sheds off in slimy sheets. corals are lackluster, colors are going, fuzz on rocks in display is minimal but it is everywhere. i am 3 months into slime and clean heavily every week to remove it. params are near perfect. checked water, storage containers, etc.
again lps sps softies are growing slower than old tank but they just dont look 100%.
i bought an oversized skimmer going wet, doing the dr. tims refresh now i am adding waste-away 10ml to 5 gallons everyother day with skimmer off for 12 hours. all i dose is brs 2-part and weekly 10% wc.
my point is i have not been feeding the tank much, chaeto growth has all but stopped it is healthy but no growth. i have been running chemipure elite since first week like always and from this thread been doing everything opposite to rid myself if it.
the corals and chaeto telling me we need food!!! this tank is too clean right? i did loose a handful of crabs/snails early prob no algae to eat. cleaner shrimp molted once and looked good but lost that month ago. couple clown fish are fine but i sparingly feed them. tiny amount of reefroids and reef frenzy once or twice a week.
im really not sure if it is going away or not. plan on feeding tank more and doing a massive sump, plumbing, powerheads, skimmer everything out of tank scrubdown and do one more dose of wasteaway tomorrow if it comes back i might just turn off skimmer, stop waterchanges, feed like crazy. if that does not work im tearing it all down.
good luck to us both
i got the slime from moving 4 year old healthy mixed reef into a slightly larger tank with new rinsed sand bed. i added fritzzyme to new tank with sandbed. had an emergency so left new tank running for 3 days before i moved all old tank rock/corals over. i noticed the water looked hazy in new tank but did it anyway. prob where it started too much bottle bacteria in a sterile tank.
2 weeks later white flowing slime shows up clogs filter floss every 6 hours or so. slime grows in sump area and all high flow plumbing within a week. clean glass it sheds off in slimy sheets. corals are lackluster, colors are going, fuzz on rocks in display is minimal but it is everywhere. i am 3 months into slime and clean heavily every week to remove it. params are near perfect. checked water, storage containers, etc.
again lps sps softies are growing slower than old tank but they just dont look 100%.
i bought an oversized skimmer going wet, doing the dr. tims refresh now i am adding waste-away 10ml to 5 gallons everyother day with skimmer off for 12 hours. all i dose is brs 2-part and weekly 10% wc.
my point is i have not been feeding the tank much, chaeto growth has all but stopped it is healthy but no growth. i have been running chemipure elite since first week like always and from this thread been doing everything opposite to rid myself if it.
the corals and chaeto telling me we need food!!! this tank is too clean right? i did loose a handful of crabs/snails early prob no algae to eat. cleaner shrimp molted once and looked good but lost that month ago. couple clown fish are fine but i sparingly feed them. tiny amount of reefroids and reef frenzy once or twice a week.
im really not sure if it is going away or not. plan on feeding tank more and doing a massive sump, plumbing, powerheads, skimmer everything out of tank scrubdown and do one more dose of wasteaway tomorrow if it comes back i might just turn off skimmer, stop waterchanges, feed like crazy. if that does not work im tearing it all down.
good luck to us both
OP
OP
RickG
Active Member
From past experience dealing with a plague of algae and bacteria is the worst thing to deal with in a tank. I had a 90 gal I setup like 2 years ago that I couldn’t beat a red slime that would consistently be on my rocks. I dosed red slime remover, spent time taking out and scrubbing the rocks, wet skimming, minimal feeds, pretty much everything and it wouldn’t budge.Nitrates and phos read 0. Consistent water changes and nothing. I ultimately had to break down the system because it wasn’t worth the trouble anymore. The biggest pain in the a**!
Tiger-Paws
Active Member
04/24/2018 2:20 pm CDT
Started dosing Phosphate last Friday, completely scrubbed the sump last night and cleaned as much of the rock in the tank as possible. Removed the UV, interesting, the tube into the UV was coated with the slime, the inside of the UV was completely clean and the outflow had a slight coating.
My flow might have been too high through the UV to completely kill the stuff.
I have not reinstalled the UV, hoping to get some algae growth, I am running the skimmer a little wet.
Added more Phosphate today and increasing the feeding cycle.
Note: The slime has a Pinkish tone when it is thick.
jld
Active Member
04/25/2018 - totally scrubbed all sump chambers in my lagoon 25 AIO tank, return pump, media baskets, skimmer, 2 wavepumps, heater, ato, frag racks. cleaned glass. drained all chambers dry as a water change.
the slime you see in the photos is actually as thick as it looks - hard to hold onto things - took 3 hours just scrubbing the stuff off. these were 10 days growth of slime. my slime is a brownish color. the white flowing stringy slime looks to be almost gone and is replaced by more GOO so I am not sure if that is it breaking down in the tank. filter floss still clogs after 10-12 hours.
like i said i was adding dr. tims refresh for 10 days then waste-away for 3 doses 10ml per 5 gallons. i am stopping this course of action and increase feedings, running the skimmer more dry.
questions:
REMOVED chemipure elite and small bag of ROX .08 - should i not use any chemical media at all for the time being?
looking into Seachem Flourish Phosphorous or should i just increase feedings more? or both?
the slime you see in the photos is actually as thick as it looks - hard to hold onto things - took 3 hours just scrubbing the stuff off. these were 10 days growth of slime. my slime is a brownish color. the white flowing stringy slime looks to be almost gone and is replaced by more GOO so I am not sure if that is it breaking down in the tank. filter floss still clogs after 10-12 hours.
like i said i was adding dr. tims refresh for 10 days then waste-away for 3 doses 10ml per 5 gallons. i am stopping this course of action and increase feedings, running the skimmer more dry.
questions:
REMOVED chemipure elite and small bag of ROX .08 - should i not use any chemical media at all for the time being?
looking into Seachem Flourish Phosphorous or should i just increase feedings more? or both?
Tiger-Paws
Active Member
Those images look very much like the slime I am fighting. I have not done much today as I have not been feeling well and I need to clean the glass in the tank and blow off the rock work again.
Maybe tomorrow.
My 200 micron 4" x 10" filter socks last about 12 hours before being clogged, faster if I am cleaning. My overflow is filled with the stuff but I have formulated a plan to clean at least some of it out by lowering my powerhead into the overflow and blasting the slime off. I suspect that is going to make a big mess.
Tomorrow I will add another dose of the Seachem Flourish Phosphorous, I am not using anything else except my skimmer and 4 hours of Ozone each evening.
Take note I broke my tank down late last year when this slime took over and you cannot imagine how nasty the job was cleaning that tank and sump. YUCK! The smell was terrible.
Yet after completly cleaning the tank, sump and equipment, then letting everything dry for a couple of months the slime came back.
So tank heart that a complete breakdown and cleaning might not solve the problem.
Maybe tomorrow.
My 200 micron 4" x 10" filter socks last about 12 hours before being clogged, faster if I am cleaning. My overflow is filled with the stuff but I have formulated a plan to clean at least some of it out by lowering my powerhead into the overflow and blasting the slime off. I suspect that is going to make a big mess.
Tomorrow I will add another dose of the Seachem Flourish Phosphorous, I am not using anything else except my skimmer and 4 hours of Ozone each evening.
Take note I broke my tank down late last year when this slime took over and you cannot imagine how nasty the job was cleaning that tank and sump. YUCK! The smell was terrible.
Yet after completly cleaning the tank, sump and equipment, then letting everything dry for a couple of months the slime came back.
So tank heart that a complete breakdown and cleaning might not solve the problem.
Tiger-Paws
Active Member
How is the fight with the slime going?
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