air bubbles on _everything_

[adamcourtney]

Recently i've noticed that everything is covered in little air bubbles, the rocks, calerpa, substrate (Crushed coral) an the surface of the water.

If i stir it up, waft the rocks etc, they dissapear yet 30 mins later they are back again.

I've also noticed an increase in algae growth, i clean the glass daily now, if i leave it 2 days then the glass has a green tint.

Any ideas anyone?

Is this ok, good? bad?

Also, i saw one of my crabs having a nibble on one of my feather duster worms, its not coming out as much now, is there any way to "treat" the worm? Will it take anything other than marine snow?

Thanks

Adam

[mwrager]

I could not tell you if this is good or bad. I just had this problem in my tank. I had not done a water change since Sept, yes I know I should do it more often, but I had shoulder surgery and was unable to do it. I started to see that something you describe and did water changes, one last weekend and one this weekend, and then rechecked the water to make sure everything is ok. I have not seen bubbles on everything. As for the crab, he would go to the sump.

[adamcourtney]

Thanks , but, my last water change (15%) was 6 days ago.

[mwrager]

The 2 water changes totaled 50% on my tank. My Tank is a 125 gal. My first one was 35 gal and my 2 nd was 30 gal. What are your parameters

[ScottT1980]

I have them as well and attributed it to respiration, especially because I find a good bit of these bubbles in my nuisance turf algae. Would be interested to hear other's opinions.

Take er easy
Scott T.

[adamcourtney]

SG 1.0023
PH 8.22
temp 26.7 (lights just going off so its a bit warmer than normal)
nitrite 0
nitrate between 0 and maybe 1 (almost 0)
alk buffer is high


all looks good. one of my mushroom corals has a kinda of spider web on it though, not sure what that is..

Cheers

Adam

[EdgeKrusher]

How old is your tank? It could be that your skimmers is dumping micro bubbles into your tank, or resperation as mentioned. It could aslo be one of the byproducts of the de-nitrification cycle.

peace

EK

[adamcourtney]

I do have a de-nitrator but its been fine until now, the tank is about 2 1/2 months old now.

I did have a trouble originally with the skimmer dumping bubbles back in but i put some filter gauze in the output tray and that stopped it.

[EdgeKrusher]

a de-nitrator? Never heard of it, could you explain what it does. I had the same issue with little bubbles all over my LR. I was told this was a byproduct of the nitrogen cycle, more specifically the gasses that bacteria release when they are doing thier thing. i saw them at about the same age as your tank. For maybe about a month. There are still some in my tank, but not as bad as it was. They should pass as the tank matures. Hopefully one of the pro's will jump on and let all know what it is.

Peace

EK

[adamcourtney]

Well, nitrate reductor

http://www.aqua-medic.de/cgi-bin/php...g=en&cat_id=17

[Gina]

Just curious, do you have a sump? We used to have that problem of air bubbles and once we added our sump we no longer have them.

[adamcourtney]

No, no sump, the tank was a converted juwel rio 400 (tropical) so no drilled bottom....

[Gina]

Our tank is not drilled either. You can make your own sump or buy one. Making it is alot cheaper though.

Plus, another benefit of a sump is more water volume. You can hide alot of your equiptment in there also.

[Curtswearing]

Can you provide a pic?

Are the bubbles trapped in cyanobacteria or a gross looking film that looks like snot?

[Brucey]

Curt ... Nice description mate. My guess is that it is a combination of several factors ... the tank is still relativley new and so is generally still cycling .... even though the amonia may have gone it takes anything upto a year for a tank to settle. I'm guessing microalgae is leeting off the bubbles, I noticed it more on my sand bed when i had the problem when i setup. I'm also guessing that your skimmer vents into the tank rather than into a sump where most people have them which gives the gas exchange a lot,longer to get rid of the microbubbles. I agree with Gina, I think a sump would be a valuablle addition to the tank
Brucey