Maximum water change

One might add that it depends on the size of your aquarium as to how much water you take out. For example, if you have a 10-20 gallon aquarium 10% w/c's should be bumped up to 30-40% IMO.

If you have a 100 gallon aquarium, 15% is fine. In reality, it would be quite a task to remove 50-60% of the water. :o
 
I'm pretty sure this isn't a bacterial bloom - the tank has been up and fully cycled for 4 months, and the bubbles have been there for almost 1 month. The tank just looks dirty and milky is the only way to describe it... but not solid milky. When you get close enough to the tank, you could definitely see little infividual bubbles - and where the filter spillway is, the bubbles would get pushed all around from the water current. I wish I had a good enough camera to take a picture of it lol

I was told by someone else that it was probably from the water cascading though the bio wheel and the extra agitation was causing the bubbles. I'm not sure, so I removed the bio wheel and I have it floating in the tank to keep the bacteria alive.

Water changes are great, a great tool for many things but they wont remove the bubbles in your water.
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What do you mean they won't remove the bubbles? It seemed like they sorta appeared one day and got worse and worse until I decided to do something about it. When I get a glass of water out of the tap, there certainly aren't any bubbles in it making it look cloudy. I have floss and an AC sponge in my filter too, so you would think that would help to sorta filter them out, no? So far, it seems like water changes have helped to cure the problem... I'll probably follow up with another 30% change tomorrow and then maybe another on Tuesday. For those wondering, I don't have any bubble wands or anything like that.

Someone said before that I could have a crack in my intake tube somewhere...? I can't find anything like that, and I also have tried cleaning the filter numerous times. The presence of bubbles doesn't really concern me much... but I'm tedious about everything so I want it to be crystal clear lol... when people come into the apartment, I'm kinda embarassed when they take a look at the tank and it looks dirty :p

I'll keep you updated if my bubbles disappear :D
 
I do 75% water change every two weeks, including substrate vacuuming and sometime filter cleaning at the same time so that I can pick up the dirt flushing out of the filters. I could have changed more water if not because my biggest fish is exposing its back. I never worry about cleaning out all the beneficial bacteria because there is so much left in the substrate, tank walls, rock surfaces . . . etc that will quickly recolonize.

The tiny bubbles appear to come from the biowheels. Remove them and see what happen. I use Penquen filters but I get rid of all the biowheels. I don't use the biowheels because I don't like them to slow down the flow and I get all the bio activities I need in the substrate and everywhere.
 
Iv had the same thing happen to me in my 55, was from a powerhead i had blowing bubbles in, 90% of the bubbles would rise but some would become very small and just float around. when i closed the air intake on the powerhead the bubbles all floated to the top in about a day.

i have 4 biowheels on my 55 and i see no bubbles now, so i dont think thats it.

i have the same problem atm on my planted tank but the problem is i have no surface agitation on that tank so no clue whats causing that
 
I had a bubble explosion for a short time in my 58g tank; thought it would drive me crazy, mainly because it really DOES make the water look dirty! My solution was simple, tho...after staring and staring I realized I had moved one of my bubble plates so that the bubbles from the plate were actually hitting under my powerhead. They collected there like mad and somehow released into zillions of little bubbles! When I put the plate back to its original location the bubbles disappeared!
Would be nice if your solution is so easy! Good luck!
 
of course the fish might not like you taking 100% of their water out so that they're flopping around on the bottom but I have done 100% changes on my hospital tank and never seen a change in the parameters and don't really know of any problems you would have other than temp changes. I think if you can monitor the temp, you should be just fine. kyle
 
I know you said youNre pretty sure they aren't particles, but how can air bubbles not float? Is your media any dirtier than usual? Maybe bacteria or free floating algae? You don't have a magnum with a micron element or a diatom you could try running do you? I'm not sure about this, but I think if it was bacteria the water changes might perpetuate it. I had something just like this once and I didn't realize it was algae till I had put up with it for like a month then doing a periodic cleaning of the inside glass a lot of crap started coming off that I couldn't see in all that staring at the 'bubbles'.
 
Karlsbad - microbubbles will stay in the water column for many hours. They are tiny and do not sufficient lift to overcome water currents. A cavitating pump or a biowheel or a powerhead can easily produce such tiny bubbles - they don't always, but it happens pretty often. If you turn off all circulation in the tank, within a few hours the tank will clear - provided the fish are not in respiratory trouble by then. But turn the pumps back on and whatever was producing the bubbles will restock them.
 
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