General Care Discussion :: Bubbles on surface of the water.

[Pizza]

Lately I've noticed a few bubbles on the surface of the water, but they were few in numbers and generally popped in a few minutes, but this morning I woke up and found a bunch of bubbles on the surface of the water in my tank. They aren't the normal kind, they are kind of thick and unpoppable (if you know what I mean), they are a little sticky, and the surface of the water seems a little thick too, like a little film. After observing the turtles for a few minutes, it seems that when the turtles surface for a few seconds, then dive back into the water, they release these bubbles, except these bubbles are thick, anything up? Possible RI? I also saw one bask, and one or two trickled out of its mouth when it did.

The surface view of some of these bubbles.



View from under the surface of the water.

[missibsu]

Have you recently cleaned your tank? Added anything to the water? Fed a different food?

[Pizza]

Well I did a partial water change on Saturday, added a few drops of Reptisafe water conditioner, and used the same Pellet food I have had since getting my turtles three weeks ago.

Not much change.

[missibsu]

Is it possible that you got more water conditioner than you needed? I've seen the bubbles as a result of too much conditioner.

[Pizza]

Well it recommends 5 mL per 5 Gallons, and I have 67 Gallons of water in my tank right now, I don't have a measuring device like a little medicine cup right now, so I just squirt a bit into the tank, that may be it.

The turtle's skin and shell are also shiny, and they seem a little slimy, must be the Water Conditioner.

[cusm]

I would say buy a measuring cup or perhaps ask your pharmacist for a 5-20mL syringe, they usually have these for free for parents to give their kids liquid medicines. FYI 1cc=1mL if you get one that is not in mLs. I have an old syringe from some children's Tylenol that I washed out thoroughly before using.

[marisa]

Sounds like a change of water (and perhaps cleaning) is needed. Sudzy bubbles and water that appears thickish are often an indicator of this. When was the last time you cleaned the tank and filter and changed the water?

[Pizza]

Last time I cleaned the tank and filter was last Sunday, when I first got them up, and changed the water a few days ago, on Saturday, and again yesterday, on Monday.

[marisa]

Was the media rinsed well? If you use carbon, did you change it?

[Muirner]

Do you have the surface water being aggitated? If so how much aggitation, i get some bubbles but not a lot. Also when you look through the water up through the water (like side of tank through the top) do you see an "oily" or shiny?

5ml is a spoon full correct?? So you could use that as a guess.

[Pizza]

Yeah, I hand scrubbed every Ring and Star in my 3 packs, it took an hour, but I did it.

And I just rinsed the Carbon pack for about two minutes until the black water became lighter, like grey. I use two packs of Carbon (or Rena Chem-Zorb).

There is no oily or shine in the water, so there couldn't be any grease, and no, there isn't any real agitation, since I submerged my spraybar output from my filter into the water.

Well this morning I checked, and it was gone, possibly from the water change, I didn't put any more water conditioner as suggested, and it's fine for now, not sure about what's to come in the future though.

[Muirner]

Can i ask how come you scrubbed the rings and stars?? Also, try to angle the output to aggitate the top of the water a little bit. It helps airate the water.

[Pizza]

Well I scrubbed the rings (lightly, not enough to break the pores), because they seemed dusty, and had a lot of broken-up ceramic sand, so I wanted to clean them of any unwanted extras. And I did the stars anyways, seeing as I had all my things out, plus there was only 20 of them, compared to the 300 rings I had.

[Muirner]

lol. I can see that this time, but did you have sand in the bottom of your tanke previously or anything like that?

Also, when you clean your filter you should just rinse the biomedia (stars, rings, even seachem matrix rocks) out with tank water. Regular water will cause the benificial bacteria you've been growing for 6 weeks to wash away. You want to keep them to help in the nitrate process. It takes 6 or so weeks for them to collinise and you want to keep them

[Pizza]

Yeah, when I do my first filter maintenance in a few weeks (it's still running fine now), I'll do that.

And never had sand or any of the sort in my tank yet, not even a few river rocks. I'll look for some if I have the time, but for now, the tank is bare. The brown bits at the bottom of the tank in the 1st picture is mashed up turtle turd, I've sucked them up since then (I took the pictures after I brushed my teeth ).