tiny micro bubbles

J

jcgigler

Okay, after my last big water change I now have a ton of little bubbles coming out of the fingers into my tank. I look in the refuge and there doesn't seem to be that many bubbles. Where are they coming from and are they bad? Excuse my ignorance as my husband is still in germany and I don't have a clue about the plumbing aspect of fish tanks!
 
Hello! I'm not sure what you mean by "fingers" - is it the plumbing? If so, you may have a tiny hole in the sealing of the pipes somewhere.

Or - sometimes if you turn off the pumps, and then turn them back on, the bubbles disappear after a few minutes. Air can get trapped if you turned them off during the water change. (Mine do that, so now I simply leave them running during a water change, which only takes me a few minutes - no chance of burning out the pump!)

I am hoping that someone that lives near you can visit with you, and check the tank, if turning off the pumps for a minute or two doesn't work. It CAN be tricky to track down the source.
 
by fingers I mean the tubes at the top of the tank that carries the water from the sump. I will try to turn it off and then turn it back on. thanks!
 
Be careful. If that pipe gets full of air it can be difficult to reprime it for someone who has never done it before. Make sure the pipe opening in the tank stays under the surface of the water ;)

(No kidding. I've had mine unprime twice this months when I turned it off to mess with the sump. Once from a large bubble coming out.)

Where in Germany is your husband? I speak german.
-Catherine
 
he is in stuttgart at the moment. I just turned off the pump and turned it back on and all of the white junk came out. It almost looked like a chewed up fish. I think at the moment the bubbles went away but it may come back because it is still pushing white chunks everywhere.
 
I also have another question..... I can't get my phosphates to go down. Do I just need more plants? What can I do to get them to zero? I can't get them below 2.0.
 
You are quite welcome!

Phosphates can be in the water if you are not using RO/DI (filtered) to replace top-off, or when you do a water change. It can also be in the fish food - particulary flake food. If you over-feed, you are leaving phosphates in the water.

There is a product called Phosban (little white balls that go in a bag, which hangs somewhere in the tank) that can remove phosphates.

But your best method is to use RO/DI filtered water for top-off and water changes, and to feed only as much food as the fish will eat - only add a little at time and make sure they eat that portion before adding any more.
 
You can get RO/DI water at the water station in wal mart. Or read the distilled water jugs and it can say "purified by the process of reverse osmosis" ;)

Poor fishie got sucked up. It happens. Good job for finding the issue!

My brother in law's family has a vineyard outside of Stuttgart. Last places I went were Mainz, Koeln, and Frankfurt.
 
Umm, just a note to the above - I think Wal Mart has RO water only, and NOT DI. Some do, some do not, you need to read the sticker on the machine. Sparkletts doesn't usually do the DI :D

Same thing - Reverse Osmosis is RO - not DI, so filtered water is much better than tap, but it won't have the full benefits.

Read the label carefully - LOL.
 
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