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Originally Posted by Trevor Robertson
I am in week two of my cycle, I have a 135 galon tank and 100lbs of live rock in it to help the cycle move along. I have noticed that a brown layer of dirt? has formed on the top of the tank,
Thanks
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Surface scum was a problem in our old well-cycled 75 and the 180 (both had a skimmer), and in our 110 gallon indoor goldifsh pond. It can be cured by agitating the water surface more. Just move your powerheads up so they're almost making the water splash. If you have only one powerhead on your 135, another would certainly help, making sure they both agitate the surface as much as possible. In the 180, we had 802s (with prefilters filled with foam) in both corners and had them pointed at 45 degree angles so they agitated as much water as possible. I weekly cleaned the foams as they got pretty dirty.
The same scum's now a bit of a problem in our 42. Because of the length of the glass cover on the 42, I can't raise the big 802 powerhead any higher. But I've been experimenting with trying to get the right upward tilt on it so more or the surface is agitated, but not so much that it splashes onto the glass cover. Come to think of it, I should see how the last tilting experiment is doing. And I'll be water testing today too to see if any ammonia or nitrite has appeared in the 42 :-)