film on top of my water

[stevefromga2000]

i have some sort of film on the top of my water in my tank. i'm not sure what it is. if i put my finger in the water, i can tell the currents of the water because the film breaks apart around my finger. i have two aquaclear 50's on opposite sides of my tank. also, i can see the current circulating at the top. any ideas on what i need to do to get rid of this? is it even bad?

 

[melosu58]

It`s a protein sheen. If you have an overflow make sure it is draining and if not point some PH`s up to the surface. A good skimmer would take care of it.

 

[stevefromga2000]

i have a good skimmer. i have an aqua c remora skimmer. or is it some other kind of skimmer that you mean? i can pull one of my power heads up closer to the surface and try that.

 

[Kurt_Nelson]

Been there. Done that. Try this...

http://www.aquariumadvice.com/forums/f20/surface-skimmer-remora-pro-97357.html

Haven't had any issues since I've done this.

 

[fijiwigi]

I actually noticed I had this problem as well the other day. I have an Aquamedic Turboflotor1000 Multi for my 46G hanging on my 15g sump/refugium With plenty of flow. What I noticed is when I adjusted my return flow and my powerheads that the surface scum went away. Only the side opposite of my overflow had scum. I pointed the powerhead on that side of the tank toward the surface to create ripple and the scum went away. My skimmer is good enough for a tank much larger than mine so it must have just been a flow issue.

 

[stevefromga2000]

that looks like it would help a lot, and it does make sense, but the problem is that i have a rio 1400 pump with my skimmer. i don't see any place to hook up one of those surface skimmers. am i looking at it wrong or maybe missing something?

 

[Kurt_Nelson]

Don't know anything about the Rio pump, but it still seems like you could rig something to adapt to the inlet of the Rio. It's just a different size hole than the Mag3.

 

[Dennis210]

I have to agree, if your have a surface sheen of excess waste material you are not getting effective skimming. By adding a surface skimmer to the pump that runs your skimmer you should then take care of the problem. You might ask yourself why do I have a build up on my surface!
Nine times out of ten it is becuase of husbandry or maintainance of tank.
Overfeeding, overstocking, not cleaning pads and filters, running media too long, etc.

 

[stevefromga2000]

i only feed my fish once every other day, so i know i'm not over feeding. and i only have 6 fish total in the tank, so i don't think that it's over stocking. i also just cleaned out my powerheads, they were pretty dirty, so maybe that one of the problems. i'll keep looking for some way to work a surface skimmer into my pump

 

[melosu58]

You might ask yourself why do I have a build up on my surface!
Nine times out of ten it is becuase of husbandry or maintainance of tank.
Overfeeding, overstocking, not cleaning pads and filters, running media too long, etc.

 

[MommaFishels]

For the Rio 1400 pump it's just a different size pre-skimmer box:

http://www.marinedepot.com/ps_ViewItem~idProduct~AC3311.html

I have the Remora Pro w/ Rio 1400 and I use the pre-skimmer listed above and it works great. There really is no place that the two plastic thumb screws attach to on the pump, they just push the pump against the opposite side of the box to hold it in place. Not the best design, but you can get it working well with a little fiddling around. You will probably have to replace the short piece of tubing between the skimmer inlet and the pump with a longer piece to get the pump further down in the pre-skimmer box where the thumb screws can push it against the other side of the box, holding the box in place.

 

[Kurt_Nelson]

Just so there's no confusion... the link I posted is a DIY surface skimmer and doesn't use Remora Skimmer box. The concept should work with any pump - you just might have to do some trial and error work on the fitting sizes needed.

The size of that Remora thing, as well as the stupid attachment setup MommaFishels noted, made me come up with a different plan.

 

[stevefromga2000]

i just ordered the skimmer box, so it will get here in about 10 days so i'll have to see what i can do with it then. i'm guessing that the box is going to come with instructions, but do i need to put the box towards the bottom, or at the top at the surface? from what i was reading on the description, i'm assuming that it goes near the surface so that the box itself will skim the surface, but i was curious. thank you for the link momma, and thank you for the ideas on future problems kurt.

 

[Frogspawn]

i know this may have no relevance for you but i some times have a horrbile time with a film on my water surface. for many a surface ripple works if the film is from your tank. but in my case i live in a very old home and have hard wood floors, old vents and cooling system. i acculmate ALOT of dust in my home. more then the avg, bear! LOL it gets so bad some times i can dip my finger in my tank and pull it out, and it feels so nasty! so i try to keep my door closed and as cover my tank as much as possible and i have seen a great improvement. might not be your problem but i just figured i would throw that out there.

 

[Memorex88]

I had this problem too and got rid of it by removing all the fake plants and giving the filter (Aqua Clear 200 in a 33g tank) a total cleaning. I noticed that the surface water wasn't moving enough and now it is. 30 minutes later, the film is gone. Like a previous poster mentioned, the freshwater dried shrimp is probably to blame and no enough circulation to breakup the surface water to get the proteins moving and into the filter made the difference. Hope my 2 cents helps someone.