Oily Stuff on Water Surface

[Huckleberry]

I've had my 12 gal Nano set up for about two weeks now. Its cycling still. The water surface has the typical oily residue floating on top. Unlike my 135 reef, the oily stuff does not seem to flow into the overflow box. I have the water output nozzle already aimed up toward the surface to try breaking up the film, but no workey. :confused I'm guessing this will affect the oxygen transfer.

What, if anything, can be done to help this.

 

[incysor]

A surface skimmer is generally required to help get rid of it. The easiest mod for a cube out there is the casette tape surface skimmer mod. Some folks recently have said that it didn't help much. The only reason I can think of that it wouldn't is the casette tape doesn't have 'teeth', so cutting teeth into it might help, or bulding a small box with teeth that is about the same size out of plexi might work better.

B

 

[Huckleberry]

Thanks for the info. Is there a thread that describes this modification, perhaps with pics for the newbies in the group??? (Probably wishful thinking on the pics!)

 

[incysor]

I posted the link a few days ago.
Do a search for casette.

B

 

[djconn]

Huck,
You probably won't do what I did hear on my 20 gallon but here is the link just to see what I did. I'm still using this setup on my 20 and my surface water is crystal clear. I use a plastic bracket instead of the c-clamp now.

http://www.nanotank.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=85