Question: Oily Water

Hi guys, recently I have noticed a thin oily film on the surface which wont go away. I have changed the water and cleaned all of the plastic ornaments (thinking it was coming from them), but sadly after a couple of days it comes back. The water parameters seem fine PH a little high, the axies are not bothered buy it and the White Cloud Minnows are still going strong. has anyone come across a similar problem?

Thanks Calum

Its protein and its normal if you axies have a high protein diet. You can try to suck it up with a turkey baster or siphon hose, it wont hurt them though.

If your water is fine in nitrite it could be that it's a layer of dead bacteria that starved because their was no more ammonia or nitrite to feed on and process
Frequent water changes and it will disappear

Brillant, thanks for that. Going to have to stop feeding them those fatty magots. lol

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i got this too, so i got a new bio-wheel filter, because i hoped it would churn up the surface a tad more. (but the bio-wheel is so powerful, i did the half waterbottle trick.)

i have this aswell i think its from the catfish food i was told to feed them

interesting, thnking about it now it only started once i started feeding them cat fish food.

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You can easily remove that film off the water by placing newspaper on the surface and removing it.

Could be protein film but if the surface is being agitated that should be a minimal cause.
There are a few brands of pellets I avoid because the the oil that leaches out of them before they are eaten creating an oily film on the surface. One fish store here has a pellet my guys really like but I had to stop feeding it because the oil was such a problem.
My husband fed it to his Cherry Shrimp for a week and the film reduced the oxygen transfer on the surface and most of them died. (the tank with the protein skimmer removing the oil fared much better so it wasn't the change in diet that killed them)
I haven't had too much trouble with oil from the Hikkari sinking carnivore pellet (it has a catfish on the front) but it is more oily than my normal axie pellet but it's also softer/crumblier.

Easiest way as Jake said is to lay a bit of newspaper, I prefer kitchen paper towel though, lay it over the top and lift it off again. Also, if it's not already, breaking the surface will help to keep protein films down to a minimum for longer. You can do this with your filter or an airstone.

Lay off the catfish food if you can for a bit and see if it makes a difference.

Good Luck
Mere.

Mine did that for awhile, but then i added a sponge filter, and the surface agitation broke it up. the filter than took it out it's not too big of a deal as long as it's not covering the whole surface. once it does that, you start to lose oxygen in the water, and that's never good.