Dealing With "Tiny Micro-Bubbles, Tiny Micro-Bubbles"...

[DISCUS STU]

Hello Everyone and Happy New Year!

I have to do direct tap water changes as I live in a 1-bedroom apartment w/o much room for water storage. Unfortunately I get tremendous amounts of micro-bubbles that will potentially damage my Discus's slime coat.

This is only an issue in the winter time as I need to use a greater ratio of warm tap water to cold water to have the water at the right temperature. In the fall, spring, or summer, I don't have this issue. It's the warm water that carries the micro-bubbles.

While I've tried various things to deal with with micro-bubbles; various filter media strainer bags on the end of the hose, etc. The only thing that seems to really work at this point is to run the tap very, very slowly so that the bubbles don't agitate around the tank and stay mostly toward the top of the water column where they will dissipate before they can do much damage. HOB filters must be turned off or disabled so as not to move the water around. This is a little more time consuming but seems to work.

My Discus seem to know the score and seem to hang toward the bottom 1/3 of the tank away from the "deadly cloud". Here they are as I do a water change with 3 fine mesh filter bags on the end of the siphon that do virtually nothing to help the problem.

105473

[atlantadiscus]

Can you use a clean bathtub as a holding tank for a few hours,then pump the water into your aquarium?

[DISCUS STU]

It's a good idea and I've seen it on the forum before but I don't have the pump. Actually this system I've shown seems to work well. When I do my water changes it would also use more water than the tub could hold.

[Discus-n00b]

I've seen it suggested to use a prefilter sponge and/or micron filter sock on the end of the hose to dissipate them as they go into the tank. Also using a shower head. Though I can't speak to how each method works, just know of their application as posted on this forum previously.
http://forum.simplydiscus.com/showthread.php?117851-dissipating-micro-bubbles

[jim LI]

if you use a python or similar hose to fill your tank, stuff filter floss into the tube. it helps reduce the bubbles a lot.

[DISCUS STU]

if you use a python or similar hose to fill your tank, stuff filter floss into the tube. it helps reduce the bubbles a lot.

Good suggestion. I'll see how well that works.

[Filip]

I use this DIY device for stripping microbubbles and my discus are fairly satisfied :

Protein shake bottle for stripping microbubbles: http://youtu.be/1CEQbcj9E2s

The bigger bottle you have I.e. (through more material water flows on its way to tank ) the cleaner from microbubbles it will be .

[CammieTime]

I recently discovered that if you pump the water via a hose into the tank, but bubbles are seriously reduced for some reason. Try what someone else suggested, fill a tub full of the water and then keep the water running and put a pump in the tub and pump the water to the tank from there.

[Neptune]

How about putting a 10" canister filter inline? pack it full of floss or something? Seems to me all you have to do is decrease the pressure somewhere/somehow along the line?

[Filip]

How about putting a 10" canister filter inline? pack it full of floss or something? Seems to me all you have to do is decrease the pressure somewhere/somehow along the line?

Good advice .
Bigger size inline canister =more filter material =less chance for microbubbles to pass through .

[Neptune]

AND just an FYI...

If you are limited on room you can age water in a 35 gallon barrel, that's what I do. The are only 19" across.

[Kyla]

im aging my water now, but before i had the barrel set up i was doing my wc straight from tap and had this issue too. i got a really long tube and attached it to my python output. i filled it with filter sponges. it worked awesome.

ive seen ppl try shorter tubes stuffed with sponges without success, so im guessing that the length of the tube is important - the longer the better

http://i296.photobucket.com/albums/mm182/kylasfish/Mobile%20Uploads/8638BBCE-87C0-41A4-A53D-6B2E20FE7716_zps9ltu2fyf.jpg (http://s296.photobucket.com/user/kylasfish/media/Mobile%20Uploads/8638BBCE-87C0-41A4-A53D-6B2E20FE7716_zps9ltu2fyf.jpg.html)

[brewmaster15]

Hello Everyone and Happy New Year!

I have to do direct tap water changes as I live in a 1-bedroom apartment w/o much room for water storage. Unfortunately I get tremendous amounts of micro-bubbles that will potentially damage my Discus's slime coat.

This is only an issue in the winter time as I need to use a greater ratio of warm tap water to cold water to have the water at the right temperature. In the fall, spring, or summer, I don't have this issue. It's the warm water that carries the micro-bubbles.

While I've tried various things to deal with with micro-bubbles; various filter media strainer bags on the end of the hose, etc. The only thing that seems to really work at this point is to run the tap very, very slowly so that the bubbles don't agitate around the tank and stay mostly toward the top of the water column where they will dissipate before they can do much damage. HOB filters must be turned off or disabled so as not to move the water around. This is a little more time consuming but seems to work.

My Discus seem to know the score and seem to hang toward the bottom 1/3 of the tank away from the "deadly cloud". Here they are as I do a water change with 3 fine mesh filter bags on the end of the siphon that do virtually nothing to help the problem.

105473

Hi Stu,

Its actually the cold water thats the problem....not the warm. In the winter theres often more dissolved gas in the water (cold water holds more gas).When you add that warm water to the cold and raise the temp the dissolved gas comes out of solution as microbubbles.

Hth,
Al

[DISCUS STU]

Hi Stu,

Its actually the cold water thats the problem....not the warm. In the winter theres often more dissolved gas in the water (cold water holds more gas).When you add that warm water to the cold and raise the temp the dissolved gas comes out of solution as microbubbles.

Hth,
Al

Aha. Hey Al and Happy New Year. While this seems to be technically correct, in any event as I need to add more warm water to the mix up goes the amount of bubbles. So it's actually the interaction of both, ok. While this is interesting I'm still glad that it's not an all year problem but one that I have to only deal with in the winter. I will try to employ the suggestions about adding sponges or filter floss to my Python hose and see how that goes.

[brewmaster15]

Happy New Year as well! I see it here too Stu, being on a well its pretty bad as mine is Dissolved Co2. Not Fun at all. I get around it with smaller more frequent water changes as I can't age enough for some of my larger tanks.... I save the aged water for my breeders.

al

[DISCUS STU]

Happy New Year as well! I see it here too Stu, being on a well its pretty bad as mine is Dissolved Co2. Not Fun at all. I get around it with smaller more frequent water changes as I can't age enough for some of my larger tanks.... I save the aged water for my breeders.

al

So far I'm still doing 50% water changes on 90 gals. and such but again by running the water v-e-r-y slowly, just the opposite of what I used to think was the better way by running the water full throttle. The picture of the "deadly cloud" in my post basically stays at the top and the fish basically stay at the bottom until the bubbles dissipate in a few minutes and never the twain shall meet, lol. These other suggestions about using sponges and filter floss are excellent.

Glad I posted here to compare notes. Thank you Simply Discus Forum! :thumbsup:

[DISCUS STU]

**** UPDATE ***

I just did two 30 and 45 gal. water changes on some of my larger tanks directly from the tap using Safe water conditioner. The filter floss trick works successfully to eradicate micro-bubbles. They collect together and form relatively large, harmless air bubbles that float to the surface immediately. Though I still have to run the water at a slower rate so as not to dislodge the filter floss I am happy with this solution.

The fluval filter sponges tucked inside the siphon seemed to have almost no effect at all on the micro-bubbles, or at least as I applied this with one sponge.

105523

[Kyla]

i had to tweak my tube + sponges for a while to get them to work best for me. the longer tube let me turn the flow of water higher without popping off the hose and u could space out the sponges better along the length of it. leaving empty space at the top of the tube helped as well.. using a shorter tube the pressure built up too much and the tube dislodged, and putting sponges right in the way of the incoming flow also increased the pressure. i used filter sponges from my API filstar, they were a mix of larger pore sponges and the finer pore sponges.

[Kyla]

i also left some gaps between sections of sponge. and like u described, the microbubbles merge into larger bubbles so by the time they are exitin the tube it is as large bubbles that raise to the surface and pop.

[Filip]

im aging my water now, but before i had the barrel set up i was doing my wc straight from tap and had this issue too. i got a really long tube and attached it to my python output. i filled it with filter sponges. it worked awesome.

ive seen ppl try shorter tubes stuffed with sponges without success, so im guessing that the length of the tube is important - the longer the better

http://i296.photobucket.com/albums/mm182/kylasfish/Mobile%20Uploads/8638BBCE-87C0-41A4-A53D-6B2E20FE7716_zps9ltu2fyf.jpg (http://s296.photobucket.com/user/kylasfish/media/Mobile%20Uploads/8638BBCE-87C0-41A4-A53D-6B2E20FE7716_zps9ltu2fyf.jpg.html)

Kyla , where did you bought this giant inline canister ?
Its perfect for this purpose .
Any link or info. about the product ?

[Kyla]

Kyla , where did you bought this giant inline canister ?
Its perfect for this purpose .
Any link or info. about the product ?

its the intake tube from a large sized aquarium syphon:

http://www.petsmart.com/fish/supplies/aquarium-maintenance/vacuums/top-fin-aquarium-gravel-vacuum-5162794.html