Should I have foamy bubbles forming on top of my 10 gal freshwater aquarium?
by Aquaboy on Saturday, May 15th, 2010 | 2 Comments
I set the tank up about 3 weeks ago. I have, 7 tetras and 4 danios, 1 catfish.
Cut down on your feeding and make sure you are doing your water changes correctly. Too much protein in the water is causing the bubbles.
Foamy bubbles can be a few things. First it is a sign that your water quality isn’t good. With a brand new tank, that is filled the way you have it my guess would be that this is your problem.
Your tank is a bit overstocked, especially since there are several kinds of tetras of all different sizes. For a 10 gallon you’d really only be able to get about 10 neon tetras in it OR 4 danios, not both. And depending on the type of catfish you have, one on its own is probably too big for the tank. A good rule of thumb is one inch of fish per gallon of water. And you measure the fish by their adult size, not their current size. If you do not cut back on the number of fish you are going to have to keep dealing with frequent water changes and other issues of a crowded fish tank – it isn’t fun.
Did you cycle the tank? If you didn’t, that is probably the issue, and don’t feel guilty, a lot of stores never bother to tell you this stuff when you get a tank. Just running the empty tank doesn’t let it cycle, even though a lot of pet stores tell you to do that. When you get a tank you need to give the beneficial bacteria a chance to grow, these bacteria are what eat the fish waste so the fish don’t get poisoned by their own waste. If there isn’t any fish waste in the tank to start the cycle you are pretty much just running the water through your filter. To cycle the tank you can use a fishless cycle or using fish, but it will take about a month for a fast cycle. Sometimes longer. If you just put a bunch of fish in the tank at once the bacteria hasn’t had the chance to grow, and the water quality is going to reflect this. You probably have high levels of ammonia at this point – how are the fish acting? A water test would be a good idea now and will help solve the problem.
Now, if you did cycle the tank it is a whole other set of issues, although it still could be water quality. Probably a combination of too many fish and overfeeding.
Sometimes foamy bubbles can be a sign of too much dechlorinator in the water. Have you done a recent water change?
The bubbles could also be from soap if you used soap to clean anything in the new tank. Generally a scrub with aquarium salt does much better for decorations.
They could also be a build up of gunk in the water. Check out this site for more info on that:
http://www.firsttankguide.net/aquarium_bubbles.php
My advice would be to do a water change, and if you get a test kit, keep doing the water changes until your water parameters are okay. If you do not have a test kit it cannot hurt to do frequent water changes to be safe. Every day even. Just make sure the water is treated and the same temperature of the water in the tank.
I would also either return some of the fish or get a bigger tank. If you do get a bigger tank move the filter over to the new tank (even if you get another filter) to avoid restarting the cycling process.
And, just in case you did not know, you have tropical community fish so you will probably need a heater for your tank. They like their water in the 70s.
Good luck!