pearling stays underneath surface...

Re: pearling stays underneath surface...

I don't know if this is normal, but it is very bad. That layer is keeping oxygen out of your water. I learned this the hard way.

I have a high fish load and they were doing fine for months and then I started gettting more of a film on the surface than normal and they were all up gasping within 6 hours of the lights going off. I had to put in some powerheads just to keep the surface agitated enough to make sure this did not happen, becuase the oxygen deprivation caused a nitrite spike as well Now my surface is very turbulent and I could not even guess the bps on my co2, but probably over 40(its really a stream now, not really individual bubbles), and that puts me around 60ppm co2.

If you every find a way to solve this I would be interested in what you did.

Re: pearling stays underneath surface...

Wouldn't a surface skimmer help?

Re: pearling stays underneath surface...

Gentle surface agitation and some flow work for me. I also keep two basic issue female black mollies who are constantly skimming the film off of the surface of my 75 gallon.

Re: pearling stays underneath surface...

tom,what causes this problem in the first place? i have a tank that does it all the time.it has a powerhead just below surface to get motion,but does not seem to help.the only tanks i get it in ,and that's seldom,are the ones with press. co2.the tank with the problem has onyx sand with leonordite below.regards,cornhusker

Re: pearling stays underneath surface...

reiverix said:

Wouldn't a surface skimmer help?

Click to expand...

Yes, and it would be fugly too, that's my problem

Re: pearling stays underneath surface...

Some surface movement, good circulation and if I may something that is a little taboo in the planted tank niche..chemical filtration. No not activated carbon, but something that seachem makes called Purigen. It removes organics from the water that can cause that surface sludge. It does not impact traces or remove nitrates/ phosphates that we add to our tanks. By removing these organics from the water it helps your tank reach O2 saturation easier.

Re: pearling stays underneath surface...

A simple technique to get rid of surface scum and help the fish out at the same time is to run a bubbler for a few hours during the night, say just before lights on. This does not significantly impact the pH, at least in my 29g where I run CO2 24/7. pH stays right around 6.8 (KH = 7-8).

2 hours of bubbling totally removes the scum for most of the day, but it does start to return late in the afternoon.

Not sure if longer aeration would work even better, but when I originally ran the bubbler for 3 hours, it did seem like the scum stayed away longer. Have to go back and check this out specifically. Sort of an interesting thing in itself.

Re: pearling stays underneath surface...

i went out today and bought a AquaClear 10 powerhead. on full-blast gives just enough movement to give a slight surface agitation. $20 at petsmart. seems to be doing the trick for my tank.

thanks for this post by the way! i didn't even realize that my tank was the same way until i read this and then took a hard look at my tank tall tank so I don't look "up" too often.