Fear the scum....

[Furious George]

I have a 55gal planted tank, with about 24 various fish in it. My problem is that I continously get a layer of surface scum building up. It looks sort of irridescent blue at the begining then by the end of the week it thickens up a bit to look more greenish. I do a water change and general maintenance every weekend and that gets rid of it, but it starts the whole process over the next day.

I don't think I'm overfeeding, I suspect maybe it's due to decaying plnat leaves, chlorophil and all that. Any ideas how to keep it away?

 

[justDIY]

you have a bacteria film ... protien (fats) float on the surface, and bacteria grow their to eat it.

best way to solve it:
get some mollies - they'll bust up that scum right quick ... they love to eat it.

another way would be to aim a powerhead or something to break up the water's surface.

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good job on minimizing your surface turbulance ... your plants will love you for it

 

[Furious George]

Thanks for the advice I'll see what they do