White film on surface of water

T

Tay690

Addicted to Loaches
Feb 5, 2009
666
0
16
Hi there,
I recently moved to a new apartment about 4 days ago

I've noticed there is some white looking film on the surface of my clown loach tank

The guppy tank does not have the same thing...

The fish look perfectly fine and happy except for one of the clown loaches

He has some pretty severe fin rot or the alpha loach got at him...cuz I've never seen fin rot that aggressive

The smaller loach that is injured is just hiding all day and the others are perfectly normal and schooling and everything

Params are good...I only had to move about 1 block

And I kept the gravel and the filter pads in the tank water...as well I also transfered 50% of each of the tanks water in buckets (water change buckets that have never been used for anything else) and of course added the other 50% of water with Dechlorinated water

All in all it was a successful move...I had 1 casualty which was a white cloud minnow that was dead before I even started to empty the water (sad too I really liked that little trooper...he came with my zebras I got a long time ago and he somehow slipped into the bag...the guy asked me if I wanted to keep it so of course i said "Sure!")

The fin rot seems to slowly be fixing itself from what I can see
Would aquarium salt help to speed up his healing? or will I need an anti-bacterial first?

Thanks in advance,
Taylor
 
Is there more surface agitation on your guppy tank than on your loach tank? I have a 5 gal tank at work that is filtered with an in-tank whisper, which does not create enough surface agitation, and it gets a white film on it. I added a bubble wand and a small amount of air and the film disappeared within a couple of days. If I turn off the air pump, the film returns. It doesn't seem to hurt the betta or the plants in the tank, but it seems that without that surface movement, the film appears. You might try agitating the surface and see what happens. All of my tanks at home have HOB's that keep the surface fairly well agitated, and I've never seen the film on any of them.

Good luck. :)
 
lol that's funny
I actually just pointed the powerhead at the surface 15 minutes ago to see what happens and then I just checked back now

I'm wondering if maybe there isn't enough oxygen in the water and it's stressing the loaches

I used to have a bubbler with 2 lines going into the tank but I haven't connected them because my children continuously adjust them when I'm at work and pull the lines out of the tank

Do you think that could cause the problem?
 
I really doubt it's a lack of oxygen since your loaches are not stressed out. Do you have plants in this tank? Those provide oxygen as well. The only reason the air bubbler works for me at work is because of the surface movement - nothing to do (I'm pretty sure) with oxygenating the water. The giant java moss and the lotus plant probably do a pretty good job of that anyhow. :)

Here's a thread I started a while back with the same issue: http://www.aquariacentral.com/forums/showthread.php?t=204901&highlight=film

:)
 
rainbowcharmer said:
I really doubt it's a lack of oxygen since your loaches are not stressed out. Do you have plants in this tank? Those provide oxygen as well. The only reason the air bubbler works for me at work is because of the surface movement - nothing to do (I'm pretty sure) with oxygenating the water. The giant java moss and the lotus plant probably do a pretty good job of that anyhow. :)

Here's a thread I started a while back with the same issue: http://www.aquariacentral.com/forums/showthread.php?t=204901&highlight=film

:)
Click to expand...
Surface movement is what oxygenates the water.
 
Do you have plants in this tank? Those provide oxygen as well.
Click to expand...

While there are many fine reasons to have plants in a tank, there seems to be a common misconception about the amount of oxygen they add to the water. There great for lowering nitates and phosphates and aiding in the breakdown of some organics, there oxygenating properties are marginal when compared to airstones, spray bars, surface agitators etc........

You have to remember plants also give of carbon dioxide at night and remove oxygen as well.............


Surface movement is what oxygenates the water.
Click to expand...

Spot on!
 
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