Oil slick

Hawkman2000

Members
Little 5g I am ussing to store some plants and a yoyo loach. I have no clue what is causing this. I have to skim it every 2 days with a ladel.

Anyone have any ideas what this is.

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Face021

Members
This happens in only one of my tanks once in a while. I've always assumed it was a residue left over from feeding. Usually I just do a 25% water change, rinse my sponges and it clears up. Possible with only one fish in the tank you may have more food then you think leftover?
 

jonclark96

Past CCA President
I've noticed a similar effect on my tanks, but it has almost always been associated with a dead fish in the tank.
 

Localzoo

Board of Directors
My guess Protein film/scum....usually Low circulation too much co2 and maybe too much food/organic/dead stuff.
Toss an air stone in there it might help.
Also some of the foods have higher levels of fish oil could that be it?

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Termato

Board of Directors
I've gotten this in some of my tanks before. In my 75G Iwagumi which gets 15% water changes every other day and weekly 50% WC, it has it on the top sometimes. I still haven't been able to pin point why.

I don't overfeed and the tank is not fully stocked. There is surface agitation but no air stone (even with an air stone it happens). I feed the tank hans flakes, blood worms, and brine shrimp.

I've been thinking that it could be different kinds of cyanobacteria. Almost every case I've seen has had a different appearance from the last. Just a hypothesis.

While searching on google, I've found a lot of different abstracts of studies like this: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0306261911002327
 

mchambers

Former CCA member
You wouldn't have a small replica of the Exxon Valdez in there, would you, or perhaps a filter designed by BP?
 

Termato

Board of Directors
You wouldn't have a small replica of the Exxon Valdez in there, would you, or perhaps a filter designed by BP?

Naw, I went Shell. lol

It's only on my 75 right now though. All other tanks don't have it. It's weird.
 
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Termato

Board of Directors
Found this on PlantedTank
"Bio-film - is a thin film on the surface of aquarium water, caused by the build up of protein from organic waste material. It is the structure bacteria build to support themselves growing on the surface where they get access to oxygen."

Which would support my hypothesis. I'm going to look more into this. They posted a thread on their main page the day after this thread was started. weird.
 
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