White stringy blobs in tank. Please advise.

[twiggie]

Hi everyone, I used to be fairly active on here but the fish I used to have all died out and I took my aquarium down for a while. I'm setting it back up and started a fishless cycle now that I'm in a new place.
One big problem I'm having is that I got it set up and I've got the filter running, with no charcoal, but out of nowhere I've got a ton of this nasty fibrous white slime that has completely covered everything. I've looked at a few pictures and topics about this but nothing I've seen looks nearly as bad as this. From what I've read I think it might be either some sort of hair algae or possibly rampant bacterial growth. I intend to do a water change and try to suck up what I can hopefully getting most of it out. I haven't stuck my arm in the tank to see how strongly attached it is or what the consistency is, it just looks so gross that I really don't want to find out. Any help is greatly appreciated!

[Slaphppy7]

Try to post a pic before you clean it up, that may help someone identify what you have.

[talldutchie]

Description sounds like what you typically get on fresh driftwood.

[Longshot]

Description sounds like what you typically get on fresh driftwood.

The stuff that grew 0n my driftwood was m0re fluffy than stringy.

[twiggie]

Yep, I have a piece of driftwood in there, it was in the tank last time it was set up just a few months ago. The wood dried out and sat in the sun for a while. The stuff is kind of fluffy but pretty stringy, there's one strand of it that has attached to a plastic plant on the opposite side from the wood and it completely crosses the tank, it's at least a foot long.
I'll try to get a picture up but it won't be until tomorrow or later, I don't have internet at home yet so I have to go to a friends or my parents house to get online.

[Strider199]

I once had some white stringy type algae appear in my small planted with driftwood tank, after a water change. This stuff looked like spider webbing. I was told by Lady Hobbs it was thread algae which I just removed by taking a straw and gathering the strings. They just wrapped around the straw and I never had them come back. I dont remember what caused them to suddenly bloom, sorry.

[twiggie]

That's pretty interesting, I've only had this tank set up for a few days so I haven't really needed to change any water yet. I'll take a picture before I start cleaning it up tonight and get what I can cleaned up, I don't think I'll be able to sit there and get it all in a single session.
Hopefully the picture will help with identification but since the water is so cloudy, at least it was cloudy this morning, I'm not sure how easily it will be to see the stuff.

[talldutchie]

I'd say don't worry about it. It's easy to remove and once the tank stabilises not that likely to return. Syphon it away maybe.

[twiggie]

Update!
When I got home last night, the tank was milky white and from the little I can see it almost looks like the stuff in question has dissolved. I guess it's just part of this cycle, maybe the water where I live now is just that much different than the last place I lived. I'm half considering getting bottled spring water to use for my water changes but we'll see.

[Strider199]

Or you can install an r/o system in your place and do your water changes without additives. It does cost a few bucks though.