Alot of Particles in my water why?

[kaz]

for the past 2 weeks I have been noticing alot of particles in my water, it used to be clean and straight out of my faucett. what can this be? I was dropping kent potassium drops and florapride. I also been noticing alot of oils substance on the surface too. the particles are fine like bubbles all around in my aquarium but yet they are not for sure bubbles. yesterday I did a 50%pwc and today I cleaned my xp3, it is much better but still not as it used to be.

 

[bs6749]

I was going to suggest a dirty filter and that maybe a more frequent change/cleaning of the filter may be needed to suit what you would like. Sounds like this may be at least part of the solution.

 

[SparKy697]

Something that I don't see talked about here but have always thought could be a problem: Sticking your arm into the tank.

I know it is a necessary evil but I wonder if the "oil substance" could be from your skin? I know I have caught myself going to reach in more than once and had to stop and think of what I have been doing and should I go wash first?

Just a thought.

 

[JDogg]

oil substance could be disolved organic compounds...

cause by either over feeding or something is decaying... are all you plants true aquatic plants?

 

[kaz]

I had one plant that was dieing so I took it out of the tank and it might be guilty of a little over feeding, what about the particles?

 

[Gillie]

I sometimes have this problem. After lots of research I found that the oily film on the surface is excess protein of some type caused by fish waste. The only solution I found was to soak it up by placing plain white paper towel on the surface, along with feeding smaller portions. As for the particles I use an Aquaclear power head with a canister attachment that removes particles as small as 1 micron. In doing this I am able to keep this problem well under control.

 

[kaz]

do you have a link to those products your mention

 

[ataylor]

Sponge filters, especially when used with a powerhead (vs an airpump), can be very effective at water polishing. IMHO the lowly sponge filter is still one of the best filtration devices known to man and fish.

 

[roka64]

In SW, we make more surface ripple, this gets rid of the oily film.....

 

[JustOneMore20]

^^Thats what I did....added more surface agitation. I had an oily film on the surface of both 55g tanks (the planted tank after I moved the HOB to the Malawi), so I added a powerhead to the planted one for more agitation. The HOB was moved to the Malawi tank just for that reason...more surface movement. And that got rid of the film.