Scum floating on surface of water

[theodo155]

My fish only with life rock tank has been up for about 9weeks now and the lr has cycled, all test for water are fine green algae has come and gone Every thing is fine except I have this Scum layer on the surface of my water. It looks like a cross between pieces of algae some debris from the lr and also some dust from my crushed coral bottom. Since I am a fish only tank I have a canister filter, protein skimmer and power heads no skimmer for a wet/dry. How do I get this off the surface of my water? I will attempt to attach a pic.

 

[dralarms]

If you have a skimmer, it's not working correctly. If not then you need one. If you have one what kind is it?

 

[loganj]

Make sure your skimmer is drawing water from the surface. What you have is dissolved organic compounds (DOC's) and they'll always go to the surface. You may need to look into a surface skimmer box for your skimmer.

 

[theodo155]

My skimmer is a Seaclone 100 protein skimmer. I got a pic up and you can see my skimmer in the back of the pic. How do you add a surface skimmer box?

 

[loganj]

There's a large part of the problem. Seaclones are not very efficient, but they are better than nothing. If you can rig up some sort of box around the powerhead so that it will get water from the surface where all the gunk is, the Seaclone will eventually remove most of it. An Aqua C Remora be a much better choice if it's in the budget to upgrade.

 

[theodo155]

Ok so a Aqua C Remora is the skimmer. Is it adjustable so it can truly skim the water surface? Recommend any certain place to buy?

 

[loganj]

It's not adjustable, but you can get a surface skimmer box for it. As fishfreek pointed out though, after buying one, you have to be very diligent about keeping the water level up so the skimmer doesn't run out of water. The Aqua C will pull a good bit out of the water without the skimmer box though. What size tank do you have? The Remora is good for up to about a 55 gal...above that and you're better off with the Remora Pro and a Mag 3 to drive it. If you buy a Remora, get it with the MJ1200 powerhead instead of the Rio. Check the sponsor forum for places to buy one if you're interested.
One other thing you might do is up the flow in your tank...that will help keep the DOC's from accumulating on the top so much. HTH.

 

[theodo155]

I have a 75 gallon tank. Info I have read says Aqua C Remora works up to a 75. What do you mean up the flow in my tank. I already have 2-301 power heads and also some flow from my canister filter and my protein skimmer. The power heads are half down the tank pointing down. Maybe I should point one up to get more surface agitation?

 

[GrndHog]

IMO you need more water movement on the surface, place a PH on one end of your tank near the surface pointed toward the weir.

 

[kidkameleon3]

another way with out buying a skimmer is to make a spray bar.I have one with my fluval and it really does a great job of stopping that.And adds interesting currents w/ power heads

 

[Brad]

surface skum

I had this problem in my first tank, when I didn't have an overflow box. I tried to get the skimmer to draw water from the surface but I could never keep the level of the tank stable enough to have it work consistently without constant adjusting.

If the tank level was a bit high...the skimmer would draw from below the surface.

If the tank level got too low...the skimmer would run dry really quickly.

So I ended up directing the outflow from the skimmer to FALL into the tank. This would break up the skum and suck it back down into the tank.