white string yuck on my plants

[magakitty]

in a fishless cycle - 20 gal tank - seems stuck in nitrite portions. found white stringy yuck on my plants. seems to disolve to nothing when I pull a piece out. but found a chunk of something white and disgusting floating in tank. Pulled it out and it is a soft mass, something like (please excuse me for this) a soft booger. can't seem to find anything like it online or in my books. Any ideas?

 

[abh19]

My guess would be fungus. Probably the fish would eat it, if there were fish in there. You might be able to remove it by using tube suction from a siphon. Can you inoculate with material from a mature aquarium, to help your cycle along?

 

[Addict]

If you can get some substrate from your established tank that will help things along. Maybe just place it in a mesh bag (for easy removal later) and place it in the tank.

 

[magakitty]

The tank has already been seeded from established tanks, I have been netting out what i can, I pruned back the most effected plants, and the cycle seems to have bumped up some, so maybe I can add fish soon, along with some algae eaters...