Pink filter sock???

Unfortunately they are double threaded at the bottom which leaves me nowhere to cut a sample.. Right now I'm a little short on filter socks to keep in rotation, otherwise I would just cut the whole section an send it to you, or the whole sock for that matter.. I am also very curious as to what it is.. Bacteria seems like the most logical answer, but I'm no expert. The ONLY other thing that MAYBE, but I highly doubt it could be is I have been using aiptasia x lately to battle some aiptasia and it had a slightly pinkish color to it, but nowhere near as bright. Also, when te sock comes out, it is uniformly brown like the top part with no signs of pink whatsoever. That sock was put in the bucket two days ago (change socks every two days) and today when I went to throw another sock in that is what has developed in two days.

 

You know, now that I think about it... When I use aiptasia x , it hardens and stays on some of the lower flow areas in the tank. I have noticed my astrea snails LOVE the stuff.. They run over to it and eat all of it. One time there was aiptasia in a very small patch of hair algea and I got the aiptasia x all over the hair algea and the snails ate not only the aiptasia x that dried but the algea that it was on and they usually won't touch it. I wonder if maybe there IS aiptasia x remnants in the filter sock and the bacteria loves it as well and maybe creates some sort of bacteria bloom in the sock? I could be totally wrong here, but trying to figure out why more people that use filter socks aren't experiencing this.

 

Oh, one last thing.. I'm running my mg at ~ 1725 to kill of bryopsis. It's all gone now but plan on leaving it there for atleast a month to make sure it's all killed off, then slowly letting it come down with water changes. Not sure if elevated mg would have any influence on the matter..

 

Here is a filter that come off today.









And... More pictures of the pink sock and some inside shots..

 

I'm using Aip X right now... my socks aren't pink.

 

Hmm... Guess that rules that out..

 

I bet it's cyano.... but I wouldn't bet a lot Not cyano growing.... but remnants of....

 

The thing is I have no cyano anywhere in my tank.. Where do you think they would be coming from? Unless it's just growing in the sock from all the gunk in there?