Scum on the water surface in my fuge?

Uslanja

Uslanja

Active Member
Good evening everyone! Does anyone have any suggestions about how to clean the scum off the water surface in our fuge? We have our display tank supplying water via an overflow box to our fuge. We use a sock to eliminate bubbles throughout the fuge. The sock offers the added benefit of filtering particulate from the water column. However, we have noticed a layer of scum building up on the water surface in the fuge. We describe it as scum but it almost looks like a layer of dust. Our question is; how do we get rid of this layer of scum? Our ammonia, nitrite and nitrate are all zero. Other than the filter sock which is changed every third day, we use a bag of purigen in our overflow box. The purigen seems to take about two months to even begin to change colour so we're not sure that DOCs (dissolved organic compounds) are an issue. No excessive micro algae problem however we do maintain a sizable CUC so things are fairly clean looking.

Thanks for your ideas!

Dave & Tracy
 
B

BobBursek

Active Member
I have a small PH that runs every 2 hours for a few minutes off of my Kalk dosing pump timer to disperse that top layer.
 
Uslanja

Uslanja

Active Member
Hi Murray!, Hi BobBursek! I could increase the water flow and disrupt the surface thereby keeping the film layer broken up. I also like the idea of the Tunze nano filter with the surface skimmer! I`ve been on Tunze`s sight but don`t seem to be able to find it, could you post a link to the filter that you mentioned?

Thanks
Dave
 
partypalooza5

partypalooza5

Member
The way I have my sump/fuge set up, there are two dividers.

(I'll attempt to illustrate poorly XD)

W__(skimmer)__I__(fuge)__I__(return pump)__W

Alright: The W's are the sumps walls, the skimmer compartment flows into the fuge compartment, which flows into the return compartment. The baffles (I's) are plexiglass. The one closest to the return pump is maybe 1.5" shorter than the one by the skimmer, the water cascades over removing the surface film. Any film/dust gets pushed to the return section where it doesn't really bother anything (doesn't go to the display tank, just floats there)

Hope that somehow helps.
 
Uslanja

Uslanja

Active Member
Good Morning partypalooza5! That's pretty much the same way we have our fuge plumbed as well. So, we're starting to think that the film build up is normal and that it is something that will just happen. So, instead of trying to figure a way to eliminate the film, does anyone know of a low tech way that we could use to clean it off on occasion, such as during the weekly water change? Is there some type of very fine netting that could be used to just scoop it up? Everything appears to be doing fine, it is just something that we find visually unappealing.

Dave & Tracy
 
partypalooza5

partypalooza5

Member
Uslanja said:
Good Morning partypalooza5! That's pretty much the same way we have our fuge plumbed as well. So, we're starting to think that the film build up is normal and that it is something that will just happen. So, instead of trying to figure a way to eliminate the film, does anyone know of a low tech way that we could use to clean it off on occasion, such as during the weekly water change? Is there some type of very fine netting that could be used to just scoop it up? Everything appears to be doing fine, it is just something that we find visually unappealing.

Dave & Tracy
Click to expand...

I think I've heard of people just using a paper towel pulled across the surface to "skim" the water occasionally. Not sure how effective it is, but it's probably worth a shot.
 
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