White Slime

Searched the posts for something pertinent and the closest i came up with was

"The white film you mentioned in your first post that you can scoop off with a brine shrimp net kinda sounds like a protein film. Is it kinda scummy or resemble the film that forms in the pot when you are hard boiling eggs and one of them cracks? I'm not sure how else to describe it. I've seen it form when a stream gets slowed down in a pile of log debris and a white foam will build up. It also builds up in marine aquariums, too. If it's a persistent problem then you can invest in skimmers to keep it cleaned for you. If it's just an occasional thing, scooping with a brine shrimp net will be fine."

But this is not exactly what is turning up in some of our tanks 'cause it doesn't only deposit on the surface, and there's no white foam buildup, although "forms in the pot when you are hard boiling eggs" description sounds similar to the appearance of the material.

I'm too harried to keep searching so i'll just ask. What we've got is a white slime like substance that accumlates on all surfaces in the tanks from plants to rocks. Some cases are worse than others, in fact the first one was the worst but mostly cleared up after we cleaned up the tank.

Now, i've seen something similar in a couple creeks where there was little current and maybe abundant enrichment if i remember correctly (somewhat like the description by the other poster with the stream getting slowed down in a pile of log debris). So i'm wondering whether this is a phosphate issue. We sometimes use municipal water supply and there's often a fair amount of phosphates therein, although recently we started using distilled water. I think the tap water (dechlorinated with "DeChlor") was a common denominator when the slime turned up. Anyone seen the white slime substance before?