rsmbudgetbuild2024
Community Member
Hi All,
Posting this here I have a RSM130 and everything on it is all doing well touch wood. All happy inhabitants good parameters and I am in control of my parameters. I am right around the 2-3 week mark from initial startup.
Have one thing that’s more of a nuisance it’s this chalky white film on the surface of the tank. I’ve read through a bunch of threads stating it’s a protein film. I’ve tried the temporary fix with paper towel but now after 20 mins of paper toweling and my third attempt with the paper towel and burned through a whole roll, it makes no change if anything it makes it worse by leaving behind fiber strands that look like little hairs at the surface.
It leads me to believe it’s a combination of air bubbles and minerals (potentially calcium carbonate , it is mostly very white in color.) The air bubbles are a second part of the problem I believe they could also be reflecting light to make me believe there’s something white at the surface as well.
The air bubbles are coming in a variety of forms. Some clearly will come from a jet stream on one or both of my return pumps. These are larger bubbles which are easily detectable. I don’t find them to be super problematic as they are not constant or that frequent and provide a bit of excitement for the fish when they come ( blue cleaner wrasse loves riding the jet stream coming out of the returns all day long and my clown pair are hosting that corner during evening).
But a different type of bubbles in the form of escaping gas also appear to come in a much more microscopic form from my dry rock.. and in the millions. It’s hard to capture a photo but if you look close at the border of the rock you can see as the gas is escaping from the dry rock at a constant and large rate:
A third type will also come from a protein skimmer I’m told, like the one I have, this brand spanking new Tunze 9001 DOC Skimmer. This is more so an anecdotal type of bubble and I have yet to prove my unit is releasing bubbles into my tank. The unit is about half inch above the surface of the water producing a full cup every 2-3 days and the skimmate is slightly off colored. I have never seen it much darker than the off color that it is. What I will say though is that the sump chamber holding the Tunze has a crystal clear surface which is completely clear of any surface film of any kind:
My levels are largely in check. I never ammonia spiked, touch wood. Always read a clear yellow zero. My nitrate is reading 0. I did have issue with nitrite getting as high as 2ppm but I’ve reined it in to 0.5ppm with a large w/c last week and today I’ll be doing another one. Calcium is 350ppm and climbing with dosing until 420-430ppm which I should reach by end of next week. Ph at 8.2-8.3 kh 9-10dKH while I dial in my calcium and should stabilize to 9dKH. Temp at 78F.
Happy and healthy coral LPS and SPS (you can see the new growth of SPS tips on my birds nest + acro in the pics) and my calcium is not even at where it needs to be yet. LPS corals all extend nicely and are growing new heads.
These bubbles and gas escaping from rocks is really consuming more of my attention than I’d like. I’ve tried a few different things like repositioning the return pumps. Here’s a picture of the pumps aimed at the surface for reference. The might clear a small path of clear water in the film layer but it makes no difference with them aimed at or away from the surface , the film or whatever it truly is remains.
I am putting a lot of faith into a UV sterilizer. I have had good success with one in the past for clearing the water. I will hopefully order a submersible one this evening and will be submersing it in the sump chamber with the tunze. If anyone has any other recommendations on reducing this up to completely eliminating it , I am very interested to find out and am all ears. Thanks again!
Posting this here I have a RSM130 and everything on it is all doing well touch wood. All happy inhabitants good parameters and I am in control of my parameters. I am right around the 2-3 week mark from initial startup.
Have one thing that’s more of a nuisance it’s this chalky white film on the surface of the tank. I’ve read through a bunch of threads stating it’s a protein film. I’ve tried the temporary fix with paper towel but now after 20 mins of paper toweling and my third attempt with the paper towel and burned through a whole roll, it makes no change if anything it makes it worse by leaving behind fiber strands that look like little hairs at the surface.
It leads me to believe it’s a combination of air bubbles and minerals (potentially calcium carbonate , it is mostly very white in color.) The air bubbles are a second part of the problem I believe they could also be reflecting light to make me believe there’s something white at the surface as well.
The air bubbles are coming in a variety of forms. Some clearly will come from a jet stream on one or both of my return pumps. These are larger bubbles which are easily detectable. I don’t find them to be super problematic as they are not constant or that frequent and provide a bit of excitement for the fish when they come ( blue cleaner wrasse loves riding the jet stream coming out of the returns all day long and my clown pair are hosting that corner during evening).
But a different type of bubbles in the form of escaping gas also appear to come in a much more microscopic form from my dry rock.. and in the millions. It’s hard to capture a photo but if you look close at the border of the rock you can see as the gas is escaping from the dry rock at a constant and large rate:
A third type will also come from a protein skimmer I’m told, like the one I have, this brand spanking new Tunze 9001 DOC Skimmer. This is more so an anecdotal type of bubble and I have yet to prove my unit is releasing bubbles into my tank. The unit is about half inch above the surface of the water producing a full cup every 2-3 days and the skimmate is slightly off colored. I have never seen it much darker than the off color that it is. What I will say though is that the sump chamber holding the Tunze has a crystal clear surface which is completely clear of any surface film of any kind:
My levels are largely in check. I never ammonia spiked, touch wood. Always read a clear yellow zero. My nitrate is reading 0. I did have issue with nitrite getting as high as 2ppm but I’ve reined it in to 0.5ppm with a large w/c last week and today I’ll be doing another one. Calcium is 350ppm and climbing with dosing until 420-430ppm which I should reach by end of next week. Ph at 8.2-8.3 kh 9-10dKH while I dial in my calcium and should stabilize to 9dKH. Temp at 78F.
Happy and healthy coral LPS and SPS (you can see the new growth of SPS tips on my birds nest + acro in the pics) and my calcium is not even at where it needs to be yet. LPS corals all extend nicely and are growing new heads.
These bubbles and gas escaping from rocks is really consuming more of my attention than I’d like. I’ve tried a few different things like repositioning the return pumps. Here’s a picture of the pumps aimed at the surface for reference. The might clear a small path of clear water in the film layer but it makes no difference with them aimed at or away from the surface , the film or whatever it truly is remains.
I am putting a lot of faith into a UV sterilizer. I have had good success with one in the past for clearing the water. I will hopefully order a submersible one this evening and will be submersing it in the sump chamber with the tunze. If anyone has any other recommendations on reducing this up to completely eliminating it , I am very interested to find out and am all ears. Thanks again!
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