how the beep beep beep do i get rid of an oil slick at top of tank

[Murminator]

Originally Posted by Milad

im running euroreef 250 clone

the food is on two feeders at different sides of the tank feeding a little pellets 4 times a day.

4 times a day???......mine are lucky to get fed 4 times a week

[Madreefer]

Originally Posted by Murminator

4 times a day???......mine are lucky to get fed 4 times a week

I agree. I would cut your feeding down by half. Sounds like overfeeding.

[banditpowdercoat]

My 150g gets once a day. If we remember LOL sounds like overfeeding bigtime. How's the algae??

[Milad]

zero algae. i cant even get any macro algae to stay alive. and the glass gets that film algea on it every 3-4days i have to wipe it down.

are you sure im overfeeding? these guys look hungry, some of the little guys dont get food somtimes.

[Milad]

well i turned off the auto feeders, and im just gonna feed once a day

i also have a NP bio pellets comming hopefully somtime this week. Think that will help with the oil slick too?

[kien]

it isn't really a matter of how often you feed, its how much you feed :-) 4 feedings a day could easily be equal to one person's single daily feeding. However, you could be over feeding if your 4 feedings are quite sizable portions.

As for the oil slick up top, I've found it is quite common with peninsula tanks where you have your main flow (powerheads) at one end of the tank because you're pushing all the water to the other end and by the time flow reaches the other end of that 6' tank it is quite weak so the surface at the other end of the tank doesn't tend to get a lot of movement. As suggested already, you may need additional powerheads to try and point at the surface directly at the other end of the tank or try to move your returns to the opposite end. This is one of the reasons why my returns are at the opposite end of my peninsula. The return a the opposite end to the overflow helps to push the surface water towards the overflow.

[reefwars]

Call me crazy milad but didn't we have this chat a couple weeks ago about feeding frozen and pellets too often pinch in the morn smaller pinch in the evening is fine its not quantity it's quality of the food your offering that keeps them happy post a pic of what your feeder feeds a day in your hand and show us how much your feeding them?? I do as little as possible to interfere with my Eco system it runs naturally and provides plenty of food(if you have a reef) try cutting the feeder out all together for 2weeks your fish will be fine feed them from your hand manually and a very tiny amount and you'll start noticing a difference. Go back and look at your posts they should tell you something.....lots of poop, skimmer underpowered,skimmer intake,oil slick your looking for a mechanical answer when the problem is right in front of you you'll see it even better in the mirror relax milad let your reef grow your system isn't even a year old yet did you ever hear the old saying" stop picking at it let it grow" cheers

[Milad]

ok so here is my plan as suggest from everyone

move returns to opposite side of tank
stop feeding


reefwars, i did follow your advice from a couple weeks ago and i stopped feeding nori and frozen everyday, and i lowered the pellet count.

to drop the nitrates should i pickup some:
http://www.jlaquatics.com/phpstore/s..._ID=as-nnr0250

or just keep doing water changes until its back down.

[reefwars]

Good to hear milad give it some time you'll see improvements soon as for nitrates, is your ro running right ??? Is your skimmer before your return pump in your sump??

I had 40ppm in my tankhad me worried so I increased my water changes to 5% every 3days, pretty much starved everything for a month and now I'm back under 20 . Lots of flow and turnover as someone said have a powerhead close to the top aimed up at an angle just to the point where bubbles don't appear, your goal is to have no water lay still and provide lots of current to your skimmer

have you tried fiddling with your skimmers tuning to achieve a better skim????

Good luck my friend

[Milad]

Originally Posted by reefwars

Good to hear milad give it some time you'll see improvements soon as for nitrates, is your ro running right ??? Is your skimmer before your return pump in your sump??

I had 40ppm in my tankhad me worried so I increased my water changes to 5% every 3days, pretty much starved everything for a month and now I'm back under 20 . Lots of flow and turnover as someone said have a powerhead close to the top aimed up at an angle just to the point where bubbles don't appear, your goal is to have no water lay still and provide lots of current to your skimmer

have you tried fiddling with your skimmers tuning to achieve a better skim????

Good luck my friend

RO? you mean my RO water? I would think so, i just replaced all the filters and measured 2TDS. Even straight from tap im getting 11TDS.

My overflow goes into a area with bunch of ruble, then a few baffles, then into the skimmer, and then a baffle into the return.

Im running a SICCE 5.0 return pump which I estimate is running around 700 gph return to my sump.

And for the skimmer, I have the small bubbles going almost to the top of the skimmer. I can see them in the neck.