White Goo and Slime Growing Everywhere

[bereznak81]

If you have white goo, slime, fuzzy, stringy stuff growing every where in your tank this might be of interest to you as we had this and was able to treat and get rid of it. Skip down for solution.

We have a 10 gallon nano tank and is mix with SPS/LPS with mostly LPS. About 5 snails, 2 hermit crabs, watch goby, and pistol shrimp. Started hobby about 10 months ago.

About 2 months ago our emerald crab died, I noticed that algae started to grow over everything. This is when I noticed the downward trend of the tank. The algae continued to get worse. I bought a new emerald crab but it disappeared shortly after (died) and could not find its body. So I'm sure that added more nutrients into the tank. Water changes are about 40% twice a week prior to this and during this time. Another emerald crab was added. Left for thanksgiving break and returned to find the tank incredibly cloudy with a dead herald crab. White stringy goo was accumulating each day and the rocks and even the crabs were getting covered in a white dusty fuzz.

This is when the tank well.. tanked! Pretty frustrating. we did 40-50% water change that day and the next. And for about 4 out of 5 of the days had did this. No help if anything things were steadily declining. And since this had happened a really gross smell started to come from the tank (like sewage!) that was steadily getting worse despite our efforts. One night while up we noticed that the refugium wifi based timer had been off and so the refugium had not been getting light at all, which means the macro algae in there was not scavenging the excess nutrients effectively, or at all but dying and putting even more nutrients back into the tank. We also noticed the protein skimmer had tilted and was not working at this time. Thing were looking terrible and invertebrates like snails were dying. Two new emerald crabs placed during this time in an attempt to clean up the tank also died within a few days, but were quickly removed when found. Our mushroom soft coral that was flourishing before died in this time. I had created a "rescue tank" that i moved the mushroom too, along with 4 new snails and two new hermit crabs. It was too late for the mushroom but 3/4 snails survived and both hermit crabs lived as well.

Also at this time I tested the pH and it was 7.4! Yikes!
But with all the water changes the
phosphates = 0
ammonia = 0 (one of the first days after the thanksgiving break after one water change ammonia = 0.25)
nitrites = 0
nitrates =0
dKH = 9.2

There seemed to be no relief in site. But we took many measures and then one day the tank seemed a little better and less stinky! Each day was better and now it looks like our tank is back to healthy status.

Here is what we did and why:
- Repositioned the protein skimmer
- Added more macro algae like Chaeto to refugium and ran the light cycle 24/7 to maximize nutrient scavenging
- Add air stone to increase aeration. This was key, the pH was very low at 7.4 yet the dKH was at ideal range. It turns out that low aeration leads to high carbon dioxide in the and decreases the pH. This was seemed to be a critical factor in healing the tank.
- Kalkwasser drip - to help with pH as well but not affect dKH as much since that was within parameters.
- decreased frequency AND volume of water change - although it was important to remove any phosphates, nitrates, etc at a certain point this may actually had removed some of the beneficial bacteria as well (according to aqua store clerk but makes). Also because large water changes in the winter where our water is sitting on the cold floor means a great fluctuation in temperature and as we know corals like it stable and steady. We noticed the water temperature one time had dropped 8 degrees below our set temperature.
- I supplemented the tank with beneficial bacteria using "Seed" and "Remediation" made by Aquavitro.
- Sucked out the goo with a turkey baster type pipette each day.

All of this took about 7-10 days to notice a difference. One day the tank the was a little less gross, less goo and didn't smell nearly as bad. Then next day there was no goo! Hallelujah! And the rocks were cleaner and didn't have this white dusty fuzz all over it anymore. There were casulaties and our blasts coral is still healing but it is so much better than it was. When I searched for answers I found very little but had to run many tests, ask local fish stores, and read many forums. I had to piece to together information and tried pretty everything I can think of and well it worked. I believe some things may have been more critical than others but all of the above has helped. Hope this helps the next reefer.

[MGP]

Having some problems with the white stringy algae as well. Siphoned most of it out last night. Going dark for 4 days, running UV sterilizer, dosing H2O2. I'll see how it looks after the blackout period. Glad to hear yours is recovering, hopefully it doesnt come back.

[bereznak81]

MGP,
We tried black out for one day but our corals were very unhappy with no effect on the white slime. But ours could have been something else, if your issue is algae would make sense to deprive light. I was tempted to try the H2O2 and probably would have had our tank not took a turn for the better. I'm curious how you are dosing the H2O2 and will want to know how that works out.

Hope your tank recovers soon.