Alright, so I've been putting off asking this question until I had a few minutes to do a search for previous threads that may have covered this, but none of the other situations seemed to be quite like mine.
I've got a white coating on everything inside the tank, and when I run my finger across it (mm, slimy!) it comes off the surface as if it was made up of little strings, and then parts of it float through the water like little tufts of fuzz, or like cobwebs. In some places, it looks like the stuff formed into strings in the first place. I have attached a photo to help show what I mean.
I'm nearing the end of my fishless cycle -- my nitrites dropped to zero for the first time yesterday (yayyy!) What's been weirding me out during this process is that my nitrates have not been rising. This must mean there's something processing the nitrates -- could it be this white stuff? I am under the impression that algae isn't white, but that I should instead suspect that it is bacteria or fungus. If it is bacteria, perhaps it is one of the kinds that came in the bottle of Nutrafin cycle, which by the way didn't seem to speed up the cycle much, if at all.. the nitrites reached zero on day 33. If it is fungus -- well, I just don't know much about fungus. If I lean over the tank and take a big whiff, it smells like fresh soil.
Does anyone know what this could be, whether I should be worried, and/or what I should do about it? I'm asking before I take everything out and scrub it, in case it's the good bacteria I've been cultivating for the past month.
I've got a white coating on everything inside the tank, and when I run my finger across it (mm, slimy!) it comes off the surface as if it was made up of little strings, and then parts of it float through the water like little tufts of fuzz, or like cobwebs. In some places, it looks like the stuff formed into strings in the first place. I have attached a photo to help show what I mean.
I'm nearing the end of my fishless cycle -- my nitrites dropped to zero for the first time yesterday (yayyy!) What's been weirding me out during this process is that my nitrates have not been rising. This must mean there's something processing the nitrates -- could it be this white stuff? I am under the impression that algae isn't white, but that I should instead suspect that it is bacteria or fungus. If it is bacteria, perhaps it is one of the kinds that came in the bottle of Nutrafin cycle, which by the way didn't seem to speed up the cycle much, if at all.. the nitrites reached zero on day 33. If it is fungus -- well, I just don't know much about fungus. If I lean over the tank and take a big whiff, it smells like fresh soil.
Does anyone know what this could be, whether I should be worried, and/or what I should do about it? I'm asking before I take everything out and scrub it, in case it's the good bacteria I've been cultivating for the past month.
