proten skimmer

[Dead31]

My 90 gallon has a film-like substance on the top of the water. I was reading in the book, Complete Encyclopedia of the Freshwater Aquarium, that a protein skimmer would fix the problem and my phosphates are very high. My local fish store told me protein skimmers only work with salt water tanks. Has anyone tried this? Does it work and what are your experiences with it?
Also, check out my blog at
bloglines.com/blog/daveswetworld
for any info you may need for answering this question.

 

[jm1212]

they do work in freshwater, but poorly, otherwise more people would have them in freshwater. the reason is it is easier to make lots of the tiny bubbles in saltwater that the skimmer needs than in freshwater

 

[Dead31]

Do you have any other suggestions on getting rid of the film-like substance then?

 

[theexp]

You could make an overflow box, or a surface skimmer. An overflow box could just be a box with some teeth cut into it, or without, made of acrylic or glass with a pump to suck water in then push it out under water, then your other filters could handle it. Or you could make a surface skimmer, like I did recently for a 5 gallon, but the idea could be Upscaled. I cut a piece of 3" pvc in half, longways, and cut teeth in it, i then cut a sheet of acrylic 3" wide, and as tall as the tank and the PVC. I glued this to the back and a sheet to the bottom, I then put a small pump inside and drilled a hole for the output, then put in some charcoal in a filter sock, so the water would overflow over the pvc go through the charcoal and filter sock then get pumped back out.

 

[Hound]

What kind of filters are you using? You should be able to find at least a generic surface skimmer intake that you can use with it for about $15. The way they are designed though I doubt the bottom intake on it would be low enough in a 90g, but if you use 2 filters this could be an option on one filter.

 

[beatle]

Yup, get a surface skimmer. They do wonders for eliminating scum on top of the water.