So these pictures show it all, every day I suck this brown snow like sludge just for it to return the next day.
At first I thought it was beneficial bacteria from the intake side of my sump which is about 20 gallons volume, the tank is 100 gallons. So I also have other tanks that I top off with out this stuff.
To suck it up takes just 2 5 gallon buckets so I’m not adding much water If my water source is contaminated and I also do large water changes regularly as I’ve been in the hobby for 20 years and this is my dream discus tank.





Any ideas what causes this stuff to seemingly materialize out of no where daily? I just bought phosphate removing filter pads and am cleaning out the sump (obviously needed) and tank after posting this.
I will say I had to dose antibiotics which may have damaged my biological filtration but I have added various colonies of fresh bacteria since there was zero nitrate nitrite or ammonia now it seems the nitrogen cycle has started. I’ve got various fertilizers that I rarely use, if u want to get specific we can.
At first I thought it was beneficial bacteria from the intake side of my sump which is about 20 gallons volume, the tank is 100 gallons. So I also have other tanks that I top off with out this stuff.
To suck it up takes just 2 5 gallon buckets so I’m not adding much water If my water source is contaminated and I also do large water changes regularly as I’ve been in the hobby for 20 years and this is my dream discus tank.






I will say I had to dose antibiotics which may have damaged my biological filtration but I have added various colonies of fresh bacteria since there was zero nitrate nitrite or ammonia now it seems the nitrogen cycle has started. I’ve got various fertilizers that I rarely use, if u want to get specific we can.