long white strings appeared overnight in tank

Question
 My daughter has a 10 gallon with about 8 fish: mollies, platys, a betta and a cory in it.  She has one baby molly quarantined in a baby box hanging inside.  The tank is about 2 months old.  Overnight the water truned all cloudy and suddenly has hundreds of long  white/gray strings hanging off of all of the silk plants and other decorations.  The fish seem fine, but upset.  What IS this stuff???  I looked up slime-mold that I thought it was from another answer and that doesn't look like it at all!  It just looks like fine white strings/hair all over! HELP!

Answer
Hi Joline:  Sounds like hair algae.  The tank may be getting to much light.  If the water is cloudy grey then the tank is cycling and you can add a product called Cycle or Nitromax to the water to help it clear. It is basically rebuilding the beneficial bacteria levels that are required to keep your fish safe from chemicals.  you can add something called algaefix to the tank to help get rid of the algae but cutting down the light will help too... Tanks should not have any more then about 9-10 hours of light per day..... dave

Hi Joline: just as a follow up... you can pass this on to your daughter for me.  Fish do not have eye lids so they need to be in the dark at night otherwise they end up with eye problems or stress and illness... dave