Crud on top of water

[jw1977]

I've got a layer of crud on the top of my water. How do I get rid of this? i have two Koralia 2's for powerheads along with my skimmer and hob filter. I would think this would be enough water movement for my 46 gallon tank. Am i wrong? What is the film anyway.

 

[gregzbobo]

Does your skimmer draw in its water from the surface? The stuff floating atop the water is pollutants, I may be wrong here, but the air-water interface on the top of the tank is sort of like the surface of one huge bubble, that stuff is more or less the same sort of stuff your skimmer is designed to remove with its many tiny bubbles.
If you could figure a way to have your skimmer draw its water in from the surface, the problem would be reduced or eliminated, you could also point a powerhead so some of its flow breaks the water surface, reducing its surface tension quite a bit and getting that stuff in the water column so it can be processed by your skimmer.

 

[reefkprz]

the crud is primarily protiens, dust from the room, and other hydrophyllic materials that tend to ahere to the surface tension between water and air. you need something to disturb the surface of the water more to keep them agitated into the column. a protien skimmer should help reduce build up of this "crud" by removing it before it had a chance to become trapped at the waters surface. but if its building up with your skimmer running maybe you need to dial up your skimmer more. and like I already mentioned more water movement at the surface.

 

[jw1977]

The skimmer is an aqua c remora. It looks like it draws the water from a a pump that it is about 1ft deep into the tank. So should I buy a third koralia 2 and just point it towards the surace?

 

[small triggers]

yes, either point one you have or ad another ond that will adequatly agitate the surface,,,