What is this junk?

[spit.fire]

Originally Posted by jostafew

Hi everyone, I could use the help of a more experienced reefer. I've seen dinos, I've seen cyano, I've seen nuiscance algae, and I've seen this stuff (for longer than I would like). I'd appreciate some help IDing it so I can determine how best to deal with it. I know I have a phosphate problem, despite bleach and acid bath of nearly all my rock it's still leaching P at a stupid rate. I'm trying to get that under control and while I've halted growth of most algae and no visible cyano, this junk still proliferates. I clean it off the glass and within a day or two it's back and forms on all surfaces, where it's thicker it's a brown color. Slimy and stringy. Anybody know what I'm looking at?

How big is the tank

[jostafew]

The tank is about 35gal, dimensions are 30" x 24" x 12" tall, attached to a 20gal sump. Originally had a sandy bottom but I've been going bare bottom until I get this mess under control.

[davej]

Do you dose vinegar, vodka or any other carbon source?

Is it whitish/clear at first before it gets thick, hard to tell from pic.

Kind of looks like the bacteria "snot" I get from dosing vinegar.

[emerald crab]

It looks like dino to me. A powerful uv sterilizer and some 24-48 hours black outs can brig that under control.

[jostafew]

Good sleuthing. I did dose vinegar for about 8 months in an attempt to control nuiscance growth, but while it did seem to help the problem a little the biggest change was rendering my skimmer nearly useless by producing crazy resiliant bubbles that plugged it up and blew the lid off it. I slowly phased out the carbon source about a couple months ago. Since I've quit the carbon skimmer behavior has gone back to what I would consider normal.

Yeah it's lighter color when it's thinner. I will snap another pic when the main daylight lighting comes on.

[jostafew]

@emeraldcrab I've battled (and won) dinos before, but it took an 8ish day complete blackout to do it... I'm sure this would do the job again, but I don't know how that would affect my RBTA. I know that's it's not entirely photosynthetic so it might be ok...

At one point I had a sterilizer to deal with a brief bacterial bloom that clouded up my water, but after not needing it for anything for quite some time I sold it off.

I've been slowly cutting back and figuratively burning the tank, might be time to move any remaining coral frags to the quarantine tank and give this one the big sleep...

I swear, there's something in the Abbotsford water. Ever since I moved in with my mom (between selling the condo and taking possession of the house) and being in the house now my tank has always looked like ass in one way or another... Yes I have a 5 stage RODI with new filters... I've measured the water going into the tank and I can't find anything wrong with it, but since leaving Langley it's been crap. Probably just in my head...

[jostafew]

Here's a photo with the main lighting on

[TimT]

I'd say it's dino's. Bacterial snot is usually translucent whitish.