10 gallon tank

[babygirl]

Hi, I have a 10 gallon tank with no skimmer. I have had my tank up an running for about 10 months now. Recently there has been a film of "slime" on top of the water. Is this ok? And how do I remove it without a skimmer? I change my water regularly but the film is still there. Its ok to run the 10 gallon without a skimmer right?

[thegr8tdane]

10 months you must be doing something right. What livestock do you have?

 

Best to have a power head agatating (I kant spill) the surface, that might help.

[FamousGuy]

I think almost everyone gets that dont worry about it, just make sure somethings moving the water on the surface like gr8 said

[fish04]

I get it once in a whilke if I have been lacking on water changes. Do a water change, and if you want to "skim" the water place a plain white, unscented, undyed, papertowel quickly on the surface of the water and remove it. This will soak up the slime...works for me. But make sure you are doing good water changes!

[C2187]

Famousguy is right most any tank will get that. I believe it is a build up of proteins and oil. The difference is that larger reef tanks have surface skimmers that prevent it from building up. I have heard of some people laying a piece of paper towel on the surface of the water to absorb the oil. I hear it works. Give it a try...

[Kapelakin]

You could also try running a powerhead with filter floss in it.  Any of the above methods should take care of the problem.

[JROC]

Do you have fish? How much do you feed? Do you use additives? I would like to know. If you are adding too many nutrients and organics, just cutting back on those and increasing your H20 chages a bit might do the trick and improve your over all water quality.

[Sahin]

I agree with whats been generally said.  

 

heres a tip:

while doing water changes, aims the end of the tubing you are using to siphone water out right at the surface.

 

Just enough so that it makes a noise, and draws water from the surface, but is still pretty well submerged to prevent the siphone action being lost.

 

I use this method on my freshwater tanks and it works well.

I can get most of the surface film removed this way.

[MKramer]

A variation on Sahin's suggestion:

 

When doing water changes, I remove some of the water using a small cup.  By submerging a short cup, with one edge of the lip just barely below the water's surface, all of the slime in that area gets sucked right into the cup.  You see this wonderful green/brown sludge build up in the glass that let's you know you're doing a good job.  If the description's sketchy, here's a sketchy sketch:

 

[HuBu]

have a powerhead near the water surface blowing into the surface. it will break up the layer of slime and produce waves in the tank too.