White growth - all over everything

[neilanh]

I'm nearing the end of a fishless cycle (link to thread in my sig). I posted this in there, but need some ID here to figure out what's going on.

A few pics below, but basically I've got white... something all over everything in my tank. It builds up on the surfaces, and basically looks like dust bunnies to me. It started as a few strings here and there, but has now bloomed out of control pretty rapidly. Is this just a bacteria bloom, or is it something I need to be worried about? If you can ID, please also let me know what I should do about it. The intent is to try to not affect my fishless cycle if possible, until it's complete.

All the plants and decor in my tank are fake, if it matters. Other than the hitchiking snails and my baby bacteria buddies I'm growing, there's no inhabitants either.

TIA

 

[Zagz]

I've had the same thing when cycling. I removed it, it came back. Strangely enough it went away on it's own. Either remove it by hand or it will go away. Nothing to be concerned about IMO.

 

[guppy12]

Everyone of my tanks have went through that... it will go away

 

[Jchillin]

More than likely it's calcium or lime deposits. I went through that phase as well. Adding some filter floss to your filter will help tremendously

 

[neilanh]

THanks for the info guys, good to know it's a common thing and will clean itself up. It just makes the tank look like it hasn't been cleaned in years, and it's only 2 weeks old!

 

[7Enigma]

If its a white fuzz its not calcium/lime deposits. Hard dots might be, but the fuzzy things are living. I beleive they are a type of fungus, and they don't seem to be detrimental to the tank.

I currently have a piece of driftwood soaking in a bucket of water to sink and its got a lot of this all over it.

 

[neilanh]

They seem to have mostly cleaned themselves out now, although I still have a lot of floating particles in the tank waiting to be filtered through. Makes me wish I had a bigger filter (currently running emporer 280).

 

[7Enigma]

Skim anything you can with a fine net. It will cut down on the decay. I do this about once a day to get rid of floating debris, but I have a pretty heavily planted tank.