Bacteria
So, within recent months, a clear slime has been spreading across my collection, and I seemingly cannot find a way to stop it. It began (seemingly) around the start of spring, and rapidly spread to all my indoor cultures. I wasn’t really fertilizing for a month or 2 beforehand, and definitely have not fertilized since the beginning of this outbreak, but it has not gone away. The slime collects around the moss, and doesn’t actually seem to kill it, but definitely limits the growth to an extent. It also gives the moss/ culture an appearance of containing water, when in reality, it has none, and rapidly dries within hours of not being watered (as shown above). It doesn’t seem to be fungus, as I viewed the moss under a microscope, and no spores were present, and I’m not sure how to eradicate the slime without killing the moss. I recently tossed some of the “infected” cultures onto peat outdoors, and the slime disappeared completely within a month, but I have limited space, and would like to be able to grow some moss indoors (my mother also grows some sphagnum, and it has appeared in small amounts in her culture as well). I am curious if anyone has had experience with such an issue, and if so, how you resolved it? I could cycle the cultures outside in order to kill off the slime, but I am worried that upon bringing it in, it will simply reappear. For those wondering, I have increased airflow, opened windows to the room, drastically increases light, done numerous flushes, all to no avail. I am considering flushing with tap water, and maybe even extremely diluted hydrogen peroxide, but would like to see if anyone has experience before I nuke the moss like that.