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Thread: surface scum/ fish food phenomena

  1. #1
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    surface scum/ fish food phenomena

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    Ever have surface scum in your planted tank? When you throw in some tetra bits and notice the scum seem to be pushed away from the fish food?

    What's happening here? Thought this is interesting if someone can help explain.
    koah fong
    Juggler's tanks

  2. #2
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    Quote Originally Posted by Tom Barr
    I forgot to mention that I formed a very thick layer of surface scum on the
    water, really thick by shutting the CO2 off.

    After returning the CO2 to the tank at 30ppm, the surface scum that was
    there, is now gone after _a day or two_.

    IME in the past, the scum layer often stays in a tank for a long period of
    time. This scum was completely gone with nothing done on my part except the
    CO2 adjustments.

    A)It could be that the plants leak out some lipid etc at a relatively
    constant rate when CO2 stressed.

    B)It could be some bacteria etc in the substrate are effected by the plant's
    growth rates or the roots of the plants leak something out.

    C)It could be the high Dissolved oxygen levels cause the normal layer to
    dissipate much faster even when the plants are in good shape for CO2.
    Say the plant had plenty of CO2, but no K+ etc.

    I think A) is the most likely.
    The other parameters have been left in good shape, no surface movement in
    the tank, surface skimmers etc.

    Regards,
    Tom Barr
    Something from Tom extracted from APD. Some surface movement would prevent it from getting too thick and perharps good plant growth.

    Regards
    Peter Gwee

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    Actually, my tank has some form of surface movement due to the fan blowing... But on some days (oh, those heavy days! Haha.... !), the layer gets VERY thick! And its really slimy...

    Oh, Juggler, the food repelling the scum is due to surface tension or something like that... Exact theory needs the younger engineers here to explain... Nothing to do with the scum running away from the food... The scum will be similarly driven away from anything foreign newly added to the water surface..
    Read me! :bigsmile: http://justikanz.blogspot.com/

    I'm crypt collecting... Starting cheap, now have Cryptocoryne beckettii, C.beckettii var petchii, C.crispatula var.balansae, C.griffithii(Melted! ), C.nurii, C.parva, C.pygmaea(Melted! ), C.tonkinensis(Melted! ), C.walkeri, C.wendtii 'Brown', C.wendtii 'Green', C.wendtii 'Green Gecko', C.wendtii 'Tropica' and Cryptocoryne x willisii

    Oh, juggling is hard work, man!...

  4. #4
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    Quote Originally Posted by PeterGwee
    Something from Tom extracted from APD. Some surface movement would prevent it from getting too thick and perharps good plant growth.

    Regards
    Peter Gwee
    Actually it happened in two of the three low-tech (low light, non CO2 ,no fert, no water change, no filter) tanks. All are without those scum eating fish such as mollies or swordtails.

    Interestingly, one of the three tanks doesn't have this problem. I suspect the big ramshorn snails sometimes swimming upside down at the water surface have consumed the scum.
    koah fong
    Juggler's tanks

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    Quote Originally Posted by juggler
    Actually it happened in two of the three low-tech (low light, non CO2 ,no fert, no water change, no filter) tanks. All are without those scum eating fish such as mollies or swordtails.

    Interestingly, one of the three tanks doesn't have this problem. I suspect the big ramshorn snails sometimes swimming upside down at the water surface have consumed the scum.
    So confirmed Swordtails do eat the scum/protein layer? The surface skimmer can be a real hassle sometimes... And it doesn't really work very well!...

    But nowadays VERY difficult to get good and nice swordtails...
    Read me! :bigsmile: http://justikanz.blogspot.com/

    I'm crypt collecting... Starting cheap, now have Cryptocoryne beckettii, C.beckettii var petchii, C.crispatula var.balansae, C.griffithii(Melted! ), C.nurii, C.parva, C.pygmaea(Melted! ), C.tonkinensis(Melted! ), C.walkeri, C.wendtii 'Brown', C.wendtii 'Green', C.wendtii 'Green Gecko', C.wendtii 'Tropica' and Cryptocoryne x willisii

    Oh, juggling is hard work, man!...

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    [QUOTE=Justikanz]So confirmed Swordtails do eat the scum/protein layer? The surface skimmer can be a real hassle sometimes... And it doesn't really work very well!...

    If you use the skimmer that looks like the brand Tom (if i'm not wrong) than you won't have any problems. But if you use the eheim or the atman type than you're likely to get very frustrated.

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