Film over tank

Usually excess protein from over feeding I have found. I had this problem and feed a lil less and aimed my spray bar to cause alil ripple. Went away in about a week

Paper towels to remove it from the surface and purigen in your canister, along with more surface agitation.

Wish I could find the link . . . saw a post from a guy on here one time who really knew his stuff on tank films. Push your finger thru the film. If it breaks kinda like an ice sheet then it is eigen bacteria, caused by an excess of iron. If it closes back around your finger when you pull your finger out then it is a protein scum. You can buy a special overflow pipe for ehiem canisters to allow them to skim the surface.

Ooh! I am going to second this question. I know the trick of increasing surface agitation to re-dissolve the protein, but how can I prevent it in the first place? I am sure that my fish get more food than they strictly need, but I am feeding a lot less than I did a few months ago, and I did not have the problem then. And if I didn't throw in a little extra, then the few aggressive eaters clean up the food and all the timid/shy fish get nothing. Is there anything else that may be contributing to this problem?

Hey, this might help out a bit in figuring out what kind of surface crap youve got going on... I had eisenbacteria in my tank after I first set it up and it annoyed me SO MUCH. Nothing like having a pretty tank with an oil slick on the top of it.

http://aquariumalgae.blogspot.com/2007/06/as-we-can-see-in-this-article-algae.html

Thanks for all the help. Looks like I have the excess protein. Has anyone ever used the Eheim Surface Extractor? Im trying to figure out if it would be ok with the floating plants. Thats the reason I point the water that comes back from the filter down, so that it doesn't disturb my floating plants. Also is it ok for shrimp?

Thanks

Water Changes helped get rid of my surface scum.

Aeration at night will break it up too.

g33tar, thanks for the link!! My surface film looks much more like the bacteria than the protein. I will try more surface agitation and see if that makes a difference

i personally think that surface agitation is pretty much essential when you get the film anyway because the film would diminish the o2 transfer at the surface.