Bacteria taking over both of my tanks

Hi all. I've moved my main aquarium a few times over the last year due to some housing changes, and it went pretty well except for a snafu with mixing water in non-foode grade plastic. Long story short, i had to get 65 gallons of water from the ocean to fill my tank in an emergency.

At first everything was fine, but over the course of the following 6 months, i started to develop a weird slime coating every surface of the tank. Glass, walls, rocks, corals. The corals fought it off for a bit, but they all are slowly succumbing to it now.

At first i thought this was a cyno bacteria, no worries, a few water changes and feeding cut backs and it's fine (and it still may be?). However, this hasn't helped in my home tank. In an effort to save some corals from my home tank, I brought a rock with some green mushrooms on it into my work tank since I thought "hey cyno, NBD". Within 5 days, the same slime in my home tank had covered all rocks, the sand, and the corals in my work tank.

My work tank has NEVER had a problem with any cyno in it's entire existence, so I don't believe that it's coincidence.

This has me starting to think that it is not Cyno anymore. Looking for someone to positively ID this bacteria for me and come up with some creative ways of dealing with it.

Also, looking for a way to transfer fish/corals without bringing this into my new tank. FW dips / Methalyne blue / Iodine bath for everything?

Thanks in advance, see attached photo of my work tank.





PS, if you "view image" on the pictures you'll get the HD versions of them (i hope).

I will get some photos of my home tank up later tonight. Hope someone can help with this!

 

Dino-flagellates maybe? I had that problem once and that's pretty close to how it looked.

 

Def not dinos! But def bacteria of some sort. Here are some antibiotics you could try.
Melafix, Furanase, Furan-2, Maracyn, Maracyn-Two and Maracyn Plus.
Most are used to treat bacteria infections in fish. Chemiclean is used to treat cynobacteria, you could try that also. They are antibiotics

 

thanks nanareefer, Would that also kill the natural bacterial filter? Say I removed the bag of ceramic chunks i keep in the work tank and put them into a jug of saltwater and treated the tank with chemiclean. How long will it be before I can put the ceramic discs back in again, do you happen to know? With this tank i can also do near a 80-90% Water change, so if that makes the most sense i can treat, drain, and put new water in before putting the ceramics back.

How about a 5-7 day blackout in conjunction to the chemiclean? I wanna hit this as hard as possible without it being detrimental to the clownfish or corals i have in the tank.

 

Perhaps Dino or Chrysophytes.

Bacterial and Algae Hitch Hikers

How often are your water changes? Water changes feed Dino IME.

I would try raising the pH to 8.4 consistently, bumping up the mag to 1450-1500 over the course of a few days. Clean every thing off with a turkey baster daily and then clean the mechanical filter after it all settles out. A 4 day complete black out. New carbon a quality one like chemipure or something with some gfo.

Perhaps try running a UV if you can.

I am not a big advocate of adding algaecides to tanks, the rare tank does crash, and it's just a band aid for a bigger problem.

 

Those aren't dinos

 

Chemiclean won't harm the beneficial bacteria. Stop any carbon filtration as it will render it useless. If you do use the chemiclean make sure to use PLENTY of aeration!
The reason I'm suggesting Chemiclean is because it's one of the lesser invasive remedies, non-toxic and it actually changes the harmful bacteria found in *cynobacteria* through oxidation. I'm not saying you have cyno per say, but a possible bacteria infection. Therefore it can't hurt
If the chemiclean and lights out doesn't work then I'd look into an antibiotic.
I believe you added something via the ocean water that didn't agree with it's new environment.

I would go for 3-5-7 days on the lights out.

Chemiclean is not an algaecide.