White slime?

Druinz · Mar 20, 2019

I've been battling with this since I started a new 20g. I used Dr.Tim's ammonia to start the cycle and the tank cycled properly, went through the diatom phase and all.
I had a bacteria problem with the tank being cloudy that REFUSED to go away with time. Every SINGLE post I found that "solved" it consisted of just waiting a week for it to go away. Mine persisted for about a month before I just went ahead with a UV sterilizer.

Anyway, the issue I'm having is this white slime-looking snot that grows and hangs off of my rocks. I've cleaned it off and it seems to come back overnight. I started running some carbon as well to no avail.
Parameters are near pristine:
0 ppm ammonia,
0 ppm nitrate (gonna try to bring that up for corals when I add)
spot on mg and ca as well.
I'm using Red Sea Salt (the blue bucket).
I started the tank with completely dry macro rock.

From articles and posts I've read it is the product of a bacteria that over-runs tanks that are near air-fresheners or aerosols of the sort. I have not used any in or even near the room the tank is in.
Anyone got any ideas? It's incredibly unsightly and it looks like it irritates the test zoa I got, so I'm constantly having to take it off with a turkey baster.

rkpetersen · Mar 20, 2019

Yes, looks like bacterial overgrowth. Is there any organic carbon source going into this tank?

Continuing to remove it manually, running a decent amount of high quality GAC, and water changes will probably cure it although unknown how long that might take.

Druinz · Mar 20, 2019

The only things I've added to the tank are fresh RODI water for topoffs and an extremely tiny amount of reefroids target fed to the zoas since there are no nitrates or any other food in the water.

rkpetersen · Mar 20, 2019

Is your RODI water 0 TDS? Does your RODI system include at least one carbon filter? If both are true then it's probably not organics entering the system that way.

Also I meant to ask if you had processed your dry rock in any way before adding it to your DT?
You can remove organics from rocks with acid, then remove phosphate with lanthanum, then cycle with ammonium chloride, all in a brute, before any of the rocks ever touch your DT water.

Druinz · Mar 20, 2019

I did not treat the rocks so it may be that, though I doubt it. It's base rock from ReefCleaners.org, to which the site claims

" It has been professionally cleaned and dried after a long soak in a deep water well to prevent leaching of phosphates. This rock is free of organics except the dust that may settle on it during transport. Because of this it can be added to an established tank without causing a cycle."

I also don't think it's from my RODI water..
I did add some CaribSea livesand, not sure if it could be from that..