Stocking a new planted tank

[Anonymous]

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But keep us posted. If you get cloudy water after the initial clearing up then try reducing the lighting. But remember, the initial surface scum is commmon and easily cleaned up with top feeding fish like guppies or platties. But be wary of cloudy or green in the water itself.

Bob

adding livebearers gets rid of surface film??

Absolutely!!!!!!!!!!! As long as they are the top feeding guppies, platties, mollys. Before the surface scum they are picking a leaves, glass, sand etc. With the scum they are almost 100% of the time at the surface going back a forth like a vacume cleaner. The scum is gone in no more than a week at which time they resume the leaves, glass, sand activity. And all the while breathing and acting normally. Even saw the same thing with mollies in my cycling 55g salt.

Also exchanged emails from another planted tank guy who had noticed the same thing on his planted tanks and posted at his web sight. He stated a common name where he came from was top minnows.

ok, i'll bite :lol:

how many mollies are required to keep a 10 gallon tank free of surface film, and what's the formula for the amount of fish per amount of organics produced, to keep it 'clear' ?

 

[Anonymous]

All I know is a couple of platties cleans up the surface scum the forms after a bout a month. And cleans it up in about a week or so. as usual no circulation or filtration in the tank.

 

[Anonymous]

All I know is a couple of platties cleans up the surface scum the forms after a bout a month. And cleans it up in about a week or so. as usual no circulation or filtration in the tank.

well, is it a week, or a month ?

if the bioload in the tank is increased by a factor of 2, does one need to add 2x the amount of livebearers to compensate proportionately?

what if there are only 4 livebearers, and one adds 4 different ones, does one need to take into account the relative scumchomping speeds of each different livebearer species ?

oh, wait, how much of each livebearers OWN scum/film production does each livebearer handle?


if the scum is eaten by the fish, and the fish poops, doesn't the poop just make more scum/film ?

 

[fishfanatic2]

:lol: