Retirement and forum shutdown (17 Jan 2022)
Hi,
John Howell who has managed the forum for years is getting on and wishes to retire from the role of managing it.
Over the years, he has managed the forum through good days and bad days and he has always been fair.
He has managed to bring his passion for fish keeping to the forum and keep it going for so long.
I wish to thank John for his hard work in keeping the forum going.
With John wishing to "retire" from the role of managing the forum and the forum receiving very little traffic, I think we must agree that forum has come to a natural conclusion and it's time to put it to rest.
I am proposing that the forum be made read-only from March 2022 onwards and that no new users or content be created. The website is still registered for several more years, so the content will still be accessible but no new topics or replies will be allowed.
If there is interest from the ITFS or other fish keeping clubs, we may redirect traffic to them or to a Facebook group but will not actively manage it.
I'd like to thank everyone over the years who helped with forum, posted a reply, started a new topic, ask a question and helped a newbie in fish keeping. And thank you to the sponsors who helped us along the away. Hopefully it made the hobby stronger.
I'd especially like to thank John Howell and Valerie Rousseau for all of their contributions, without them the forum would have never been has successful.
Thank you
Darragh Sherwin
Dealing with oily film on water surface
- ghart (Greg Hart)
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I see JBL has a product call Top Clean or Surface Skimmer for tropical tanks you attach it to the in tube on an external filter. Have any of the members used this item and is it worth getting to overcome the problem mentioned.
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- stretnik (stretnik)
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Kev.
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- ghart (Greg Hart)
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I do use a spray bar to break the surface at the moment but it does not remove the problrm for me.
I get over this when I do a water change. I use newspaper on the surface to soak and then lift it off to remove the film on the surface. Any surface plants have to netted first and then put back when finished.
I tend to do this with every water change and tanl cleanup exercise.
Greg
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- stretnik (stretnik)
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How old is the Aquarium and equipment and where is it located?
Kev.
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- ghart (Greg Hart)
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I have a couple of discus some rummy and cardinal tetras, corys and a golden nugget plec.
I do feed the discus mostly frozen food which may be causing the film on the water (though I do drain the excess water from the food when it is defrosted.
I use an Eheim Pro 3 canister filter and internal box filter. The return spray bar stretches most of the length of the tank and the flow from is not bad.
All is going well it is just finding a better method to remove the build up of the oily film on the surface.
The JBL Top Clean device looked interesting.
Greg
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- stretnik (stretnik)
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www.hagen.com/usa/aquatic/product.cfm?CA...OD_ID=01002400020101
Kev.
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- AquaticGardenDan (Daniel Madziag)
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The membrane is usually microscopic and under normal conditions is often imperceptible. Composed primarily of bacteria existing on the surface of the water and impurities accumulated there.
Conditions favoring formation :
stagnation of water in the aquarium, its poor circulation,
no protection against pollution of the aquarium air
negligence and aquarium admission to the accumulation of large amounts of organic pollutants,
leaving on the surface not eaten fish food
It can be prevented by:
Increse water flow, direc outlet in to water surface,
Aeration,
Remowing not eaten food from surface,
Use the Spray bar,
on of my grandpa method was - collecting it with a bottle or jar submerged millimeter under water, causing the scum pouring in - you can collect up to 100% of bacteria.
Thats what I know about that oil film on the surface. I had the same problem in my 30l cube, I found out that external filter wasn't strong inuf, I've change and problem gone.
In Your case what I will do on first step is good filter cleaning, and change filter media.
Get the glass Lilypipe outlet, they are great and submerged 2-3mm under water, they do same work as scimmer. They can increse water circulation as well,
You can also try circulators.
Hope that will help to You
Dan.
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- ghart (Greg Hart)
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All sound advise. I will be changing to a larger tank soon so will look to get a suitable filter. What turnover capacity should a good filter have to achieve this turn around. Should it be twice or three times the tank capacity per hour? The current tank is 175 litres the new one will be 380 litres.I was looking to use a JBL CristalProfi e1500 for the new tank.
Any advise would be appreciated.
Greg
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- smitas5 (Marius Smitas)
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Other thing you could try is redirecting output of the filter higher and at the same time towards the other end of the tank, creating a circle flow on the surface. worked for me.
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- ghart (Greg Hart)
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Simtas5 use of small tubing is very good but I am looking for something that will do the job continually.
Kev's reference to the Fluval device is interesting.
I will be using a JBL external filter so the below item looked interesting..
www.zooplus.co.uk/shop/fish/technic_and_...es/oxygen/jbl/186001
Has anyone used either of these 2 devices. If so any comments would be welcome.
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- stretnik (stretnik)
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Kev.
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- Sean (Fr. Jack)
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Bacterial scum - the type of biofilm, a thin film of bacteria, organic matter and dust, picking up and floating on the surface of the water in the aquarium.
The membrane is usually microscopic and under normal conditions is often imperceptible. Composed primarily of bacteria existing on the surface of the water and impurities accumulated there.
Conditions favoring formation :
stagnation of water in the aquarium, its poor circulation,
no protection against pollution of the aquarium air
negligence and aquarium admission to the accumulation of large amounts of organic pollutants,
leaving on the surface not eaten fish food
It can be prevented by:
Increse water flow, direc outlet in to water surface,
Aeration,
Remowing not eaten food from surface,
Use the Spray bar,
on of my grandpa method was - collecting it with a bottle or jar submerged millimeter under water, causing the scum pouring in - you can collect up to 100% of bacteria.
Thats what I know about that oil film on the surface. I had the same problem in my 30l cube, I found out that external filter wasn't strong inuf, I've change and problem gone.
In Your case what I will do on first step is good filter cleaning, and change filter media.
Get the glass Lilypipe outlet, they are great and submerged 2-3mm under water, they do same work as scimmer. They can increse water circulation as well,
You can also try circulators.
Hope that will help to You
Dan.
That would be a ecumenical matter!!!
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- ghart (Greg Hart)
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Thanks for the tip on the Plants and scum removal.
With my new tank I will be stocking up with lots of Bogwood and Java Fern as it will be a Discus Amazon type setup.
Greg
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- omen (Conor)
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www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Surface-Protein-Skimm...&hash=item4ab2a034ae
Use these on most of my tanks, looks to be a chinese rip-off of the Fluval one.
Does the job a treat, and for £8 you can't go wrong!
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- omen (Conor)
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- ghart (Greg Hart)
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Thanks for the tip.
I am a bit confused as to the workings of the device mentoned. What do you attach to the output tube shown on the picture

Greg
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- omen (Conor)
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