Sick tank?!

I've noticed lately that all the water by my tank ends up with a white film on it: the stuff I've got out for water changes, the little tub I keep one fish in because I have no where for it, whatever. I have a fan next to them all to cool the 20g so I'm wondering if that's the case.... but anyway, onto my problem.

I just noticed today that my 20g has a greenish film on it, like oily gross film. My two axolotls seemed normal, except my one Karl looked a little unhappy and floating more than usual. I tested the water and the ammonia is a little over 0, maybe .25 or .5 range but everything else is clear. I've put my two guys into a bit of tupperware with some water I've sat out aging (a little bit of white film in it) and have set out some more water to age so I can do a hefty water change tomorrow and set my guys up with a tub of fresh water, so I can keep an eye on the tank another day.

Now I want to know what this junk is, the white film and the green. I use the aqueon water conditioner, and that's my first guess for the white stuff. The green... I don't know. I'm guessing my filter is having a fit, I'm kinda afraid to look in it. The pad hasn't been changed in months on account of laziness, or maybe I don't have a pad in there right now since they're basically useless.

So... help?

1. It really sounds like your lack of attention to the filter has caused this - your cycle may have crashed and you've got algae/bacterial bloom
2. Get your filter organised - give it a clean, replace the pad.
3. You're probably going to have to cycle your tank from scratch again. Read up on it.
4. The other possibility for an oily film is contamination - either environmental from where you keep you buckets (eg traffic fumes) or from you (ie from you hands - moisturiser, hair products, from your job etc). You need to make sure you wash you hands before you put them in the tank, and you don't need to leave water to 'age' for very long if you're using a good water conditioner - it only needs to come to room temperature.

I leave it over night to get the temperature right, it's in 5 gallon buckets and I do smaller water changes so it doesn't use up a whole bucket. I'm going to go crazy cleaning that filter today. Would you recommend a new pad? I threw away the old one, and I read on here that they're really not necessary unless I put some chemical in there.

I had a huge pile of laundry next to the tank over the weekend, wonder if that's a factor.

Anyway, the white film is still a big question mark, but the bucket I set to age (24 hours right?) without dechlorinater is currently clear.

And I know how to cycle a tank, this is definitely going to suck.

Fidget said:

Anyway, the white film is still a big question mark

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No it's not, it's either contamination as I explained before, or it's bacteria. Either way it can be resolved by cleaning your filter, and starting you cycle again.

The white film shows up on everything, not what the filter is in. The bucket of good water gets the film, the tub I have a fish in gets a film (that has no filter). The tank with the filter was fine until yesterday.

And the "pad" is the carbon pad thingy that is replacable.

Filters often contain:
a sponge layer - sometimes black or blue, can be coarse or fine textured
a felt type pad - often cream coloured but it's usually a dense material
some filters have little pieces of ceramic tubing for good bacteria to grow on
carbon layer - little lumps of activated charcoal in a net bag - this is the layer some people don't use.
If you have removed the filter medium from the filter it will not be removing any nasties from the water, and it's basically just circulating water. Any contamination will be staying in the water, any bad bacteria will just be breeding.

If you new water has film on it's likely contamination - from the water source, environmental or from whatever you're adding (declorinator).

If you get your filter sorted and get your cycle going again it should clear.

It could be a protein film.

bellabelloo said:

It could be a protein film.

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I believe this can be solved by adding an air stone/having the output of your filter above water? The movement causes the film to break down then your filter sucks it up?

I'll put covers on the buckets of new water now, I'm pretty sure this town's water is decent because the University in town is big into environment and water treatment.

I bought new pads, did a 50% change and scrubbed everything down good. The kiddos are back in and happy as ever.

I filled the water pretty high so the baffle is under the level, but hopefully nothing shows up anymore.

I think Julia and Layna have a good point here. I had a similar problem - a kind of gross rainbowy oily film on top of my tank, complete with bubbles - which I treated by using a piece of kitchen towel to soak up the worst of it. I then reinstalled my air stone (I had removed it because it was noisy) and within a few hours it was gone.

Film is often caused by stagnant water so a filter with an impeller or an air stone can help to prevent it forming.