Snow caps on rock?

[Atari]

I have a new 46 gal cycling at the moment. It had 30 lbs of uncured LR in there for a couple weeks and once the ammonia levels diminished I ordered another 45 lbs of cured LR. The rock came in this morning and I added it right away. It was a nice deep purple fiji rock and looked great.

However by the end of the day I could see what can only be described as "snow caps" covering large areas of most of the rock. It wipes away easily enough revealing the coraline underneath, but is back in a matter of hours.

I have 4x39w T-5 lighting (2 white, 2 actinic), which was on for about 6 hrs today while I arranged the rock and did other maintenance.

The tank is currently in it's nitrite peak. Temp, pH and sg are all normal.

Is the white slime some kind of fungus, or just excessive bacterial growth?

 

[MT79]

It's actually caused by die-off. Siphoning it out once a day will help w/ the cycle.

 

[Atari]

Ah Ok, but it was never on the old rock before and now it's on there too?

 

[Atari]

Well now it won't come off.. it almost looks like if the coralline itself was bleached pure white.

 

[skipper]

I have the same thing on my LR and have no idea what is it. I have had it for almost 2 months now and my tank is fully cycled as of about 1-1/2 months ago. I have a pic (somewhere) I'll post.


Guess it did post lol.

 

[lad2knowu]

Did you add new lighting? My first thought was bleaching on the new rock. But if it is now on the old rock...

 

[Atari]

Mine looks just like those pics. It's even in caves where there's no light so I don't think it has to do with that. I have 20x waterflow and it's equally spread in areas with maximum and minimum flow.

 

[skipper]

That rock is in my 10gal with 96watts PC. The lights and rock were added at about same time which was 2 months ago. I don't remember how long ago it turned white, but its only white where the light hits. None in caves and dark areas like Atari.

 

[MT79]

It looks to me like corraline bleaching. Both of your tanks are new so as long as you keep ca/alk in line it should come back after it adjusts. Skipper, 96 watts light on a 10 is good amount of light so it may take some time for the corraline to acclimate itself.

 

[fishfreek]

The coraline will do this due to multiple reasons. With it only being the TOP of the rocks my first inclination would be the light intensity. Different colors of coraline prefer different intensities of light. IMO the deeper purple color coraline prefers less light than the lighter color coralines.

 

[SquishyFish]

To add to what he said, Fluctuations in salinity, ca, or dkh are just a few of the other possibilites. Coraline can be very fragile. Thats the down side to doing HS dips...it can kill off the coraline.