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Protein or something......... on top of water in wet/dry.


Sayhi2steve

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I have a unusual question which is common for me.... I have just set up a 500 litre malawi tank and has been cycling for about a week. The other night I noticed that the last chamber of the wet/dry where the pump returns the water back to the tank has a thick layer of protein or something on top of it. It is clear and not really visable but when there is any bubbling or the like the bubbles just remain there. Can anyone help me with wot this is and if its a problem how I can stop it from happening.

Thanks for any help in advance. Steve :o)

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My Malawi tank was doing that the other day. I have an Eheim wet/dry and an AquaClear. Where the water was returning to the tank from the AquaClear, the bubbles spread out over the water surface and didn't burst. I watched for quite a while but couldn't figure out why it was doing this. It stopped on its own later in the evening so I am still none the wiser. :D

My tank has been running since March.

I wonder if in your case it is just as the cycling progresses. Are you fishless cycling or what are you using to cycle the tank?

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Nothing wrong with the way he's doing it, Sheila. In fact, I wouldn't be surprised if just those 10 tiny fish in such a big tank would never got the ammonia high enough to be a problem even without any water changes.

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My opinion too! :D

That is very few fish for a tank that size and it should cycle without problems. I cycled mine with 4 8cm goldfish. When it was ready, I threw the goldfish outside into a sunken bath, turned the heater on in the tank and added 36 fish around 4cm. All were very happy chappies.

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I had never heard of fishless cycling until recently. Seems like a lot of hassle to me. If you cycle correctly using live fish they have no trouble surviving. As Ira said, the only time you need to do it fishlessly (good word eh?) is if you do not have access to another tank with some used media.

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On my new 700L tank I am going to do a fishless cycle, with a seeded Fluval 404.

The thing about fishless cycling, using the method that I linked to above, is that you can fully stock your new tank straight away. In cycling with fish, you have to add your fish gradually, until it is fully stocked, as there is not enough bacteria to support your full tank load of fish. With fishless cycling you create a LOT of bacteria, and if that is more than is needed to support your full compliment of fish, so be it, a few bacteria will die.

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I seeded my wet/dry by cleaning a sponge filter in the tank and seems to have worked as I now have 18 fish in the tank and tests come up a 0ppm for amonia (don't know if I spelt that right. I'm guessing no) but anyhow its all good. All the fish are as happy as all buzzing round scrapping eating digging and all that stuff that africans love to do. :P

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