Help whitish film on top of the water

[johnnymisty]

Ok I've got a 30 gallon tank I set up and I've been getting a whitish film on the surface of the water and not sure what it is. It does break apart if I touch it and tears and flakes in the water. Tank consisits of pfs some volcanic type rock, a koralia nano powerhead, and a eheim 2213 I have the spray bar pointed at the surface and the powerhead as well and it still forms just not as bad. Anyone know what it is and what to do to fix it.

johnnymisty

[Darbex]

Is the water cloudy? Any pics? Could be bacteria.

[sunkenmetal]

How old is the tank? Sounds like DOCs in the water to me

[johnnymisty]

The waters not cloudy it just on the surface almost like its stagnent ill try and get a pic of it but it may be hard to see I can stick my fingers in the water and swirl it around and it breaks up and floats in the water column till the filter picks it up

[SunnyHouTX]

That's just proteins and scum. It usually goes away with surface agitation. You can use a powerhead, or (dare I say) an air stone/bubbler

[Totenkampf]

if its floating on the surface then it is likely just a protein / lipid film from flake foods and/or your skin. its not harmful in itself but it does block oxygen exchange so it should be cleaned out. I will run a powerhead with heavy surface agitation and an air venturi for a few hours and that will put it back into the water column so that it will trap on your filter media, i time this right before a filter cleaning. airstones will cause it to do the same thing but just not as fast. another way is to just lay sheets of paper towels on the water surface and remove to sop it up, you may need to repeat this a number of times. i noticed that i get this less often once i switched to omega one fish foods, long plastic gloves for your arms help too but i seldom break these out.

[johnnymisty]

Ok thanks I've been feeding tetras color tropical flakes but gonna switch to nls when this stuff is done thanks ill move the power head up higher in the tank

[SunnyHouTX]

Just angle it up so that the water stream breaks the surface

[johnnymisty]

I have it that way now just not high enough to break the water to good its that smaller k nano need the bigger one for the tank

[sunkenmetal]

move it closer to the surface

[wesleydnunder]

You can also take a dry paper towel and lay it flat on the surface of the water then immediately lift it out. It'll pick the white film up. It may take several shhets to get it all out but it eventually cleans it. You want to have as little surface agitation as possible when you do this.

Mark