Foam in fish tanks

[ibroughton]

Hi there,

We've got a 4' 180l tank that pereodically gets foam on the surface, no matter how I try and adjust the water input from our Fluval 304, it keeps comming back. I know that as it is a FW tank that there is no point in looking at protein skimmers, but had anyone any other ideas?

Many thanks in advance

 

[OrionGirl]

Moving to FW DIY & Products. OG

Surface skimmers are great for removing the scum. Most HOb and canister filters have an adapter available to replace the existing intake with one that both skims the surface and pulls from lower in the tank as well. They don't work well if you have floating plants like duckweed, but are awesome otherwise.

 

[saltydog]

Orion .....could you tell me where I can find one of these adapters you are talking about.....curious to look into it.

 

[ibroughton]

Surface skimmers...

I've tried on of those before, but couldn't seem to get it set up right, and all it did wass gurgle lots. Any tips on setting it up correctly?

 

[OrionGirl]

Dr. Foster & Smith, petsolutions.com, Big Al's, and most LFS carry them. Search on surface extractors and surface skimmers.

Mine required a bit of fiddling to get it set correctly. The height of the unit in the tank, and the mix of surface/lower suction level needs to be tweaked so the unit doesn't make too much noise. It won't be silent, but mine isn't obnoxiously loud. If I don't pay atention and the bottom suction surface gets clogged with a leaf or something, it will make more noise, but that's not hard to fix.

 

[Hound]

I ordered one recently from big als for something like $9 plus shipping. Grabbed a couple of necessities to keep shipping costs from being prohibitive. Once I get it and set it up I'll post my findings.

 

[ibroughton]

OK, what next?

I bought a surface skimmer today, not bad at £7. I've set it up the best that I can and it isn't that noisy, BUT it does intermittently suck air into the filter (every half hour or so). Is this a problem as I've tried to adjust it to get a balance between good intake, least noise and least air being drawn in. Many thanks!

 

[OrionGirl]

As long as the air doesn't build up in the siphon tube, it's not a problem.

 

[ibroughton]

Excellent, thank you. Like I said, it i s only occasional gurgling from the air, and it quickly passed through the filter. The water quality has dramatically improved, before I got the surface skimmer, no matter what I did, the tank always had a brown tinge to it (caused by the light passing through the oily film on top of the tank? I dunno!), but now the water is crystal clear.

My only sadness now is that yesterday I lost a red rainbow fish in one of my other tanks.