Source of the Bubbles

Turtle77

New member
I think I found the source of the bubbles. I was thinking it was coming from the filter allt his time but I have had it unplugged today. The tank was pretty clear and all but then this evening I look in the the power head it just shooting bubbles out of it and now the top of the tank is millions and millions of bubbles on it. It it going to cause problems to my tank until I can get to LFS to replace it tomrrow?
 
I think I missed the thread where you must have talked about bubbles. It is unlikely that the bubbles originate from the power head unless you have an air tube hooked up to it. The Maxijets come with air tubes but those are optional and if you have that hooked up you should remove it.

Otherwise power heads are only going to blow around what they take in. Sometimes they accumulate some bubbles and blow a spray out every so often, but these come from other sources. Either from a vortex at the top of the tank (sucking in some air), or from elsewhere. Some common sources of bubbles are:

1) The skimmer puts microbubbles into the sump which get pumped into the display.
2) There isn't a sufficient bubble trap in the sump (baffles) to remove bubbles introduced by the drain before they get pumped back to the display.
3) Too much flow through the sump (return pump is too much for the sump size) and bubbles easily find their way from drain/skimmer to the return pump.
4) input to return pump is restrictive causing caviatation and air is pulled out of the water resulting in bubbles coming out of the return pipe. This more commonly effects external pumps than internal.
5) The return plumbing (below the display tank) has a leak.

People often remove bubbles from the drain by a filter sock or foam pad, which has to be replaced/cleaned frequently. Another approach would be to reduce flow and/or improve the baffle system to eliminate bubbles.

1, 2 and 3 are most common, IME. You can shine a flashlight in the sump and look for microbubbles. If you do have microbubbles in there, you can test if it is the skimmer by cutting it off for an hour and see if the bubbles go away in the display.
 
Ok my 12 Gallon Nano Cube is just the tank itself. It has none of the built in plumbing and filters and such that normal NanoCubes have. All that stuff was striped from it long ago by the previous owner. All I have is the liverock, a hang on the back filter and the powerhead (maybe I'm using the wrong word for this. Its a black box that moves the water around, has something like Aqualife 10 or Aqua something printed on the side) . Last night with the filter unplugged I watched the tank for like ten minutes and saw bubbles shooting out of the powerhead and before long the top of the tank was covered completely in bubbles. This morning however they have stopped and most have cleared away. If this happens again will it effect my fish or zoas or crabs at all?
 
The bubbles are mainly cosmetic. Sometimes they irritate sps, but for the most part they are not an issue for the inhabitants. If you just stopped the filter for 10 minutes, I'll bet it is the filter that is causing the bubbles. You might try moving the power head to a different location, or moving the output of the hob filter so it enters as far away from the power head as possible.
 
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