Brown flakey stuff on surface

kona

Member
My 10 gallon has been fishless for 2.5 weeks now b/c of ich. It has several soft corals, 12 lbs live rock, mini penguin filter, powerhead, 65 W PC lighting, etc.
Lately, I've notcied two huge changes.
1. Hella more pods and weird crustacean like things all over the inside of the tank. Snails, centipede like things, coil things, nudibranch things, etc.
-- This I'm not concerned about.
2. Small 1mm by 1mm brown flakes floating all over the surface of the water. If I dip my hand in there, it is covered in this stuff. I skimmed it off like 10 times with paper towel, but there is no way I can get all of it off.
Oh, and I just smelled my hand - reeks like stank fish water.
--what is this stuff? should I be worried?
 

kpk

Active Member
How is your water parameters? It is probably protein build up like mentioned. I had always had a film on the surface until I got alot more water movement. Point a ph or something to aggitate the surface of the water. Do you run a protein skimmer? Could try a hob protein skimmer like a cpr bak-pak, or a prizm skimmer.
 
Top