The yeast can be a variety of colors but tan or straw color is most common. It shows up a flecks, globules, or patches and if you get them out of the water and look at it, it looks like mucus, very watery and glistening. The strings or ropes are also yeast but are actually biofilm which is a colony of yeast, bacteria and minerals built into a long structure that is tethered at one end.