Tropical Fish Forums

[Pete Harcoff]

As I described in this thread, I dosed my tank with erythromycin tablets to clear up the cyanobacteria. One side-effect I wasn't quite prepared for was the excessive foam produced by my skimmer. Even after doing a 25% water change, I am still getting way more foam than usual. And this is also several days after the last dose of the tablets (I only did 2 doses of 2 tablets each). I haven't been able to run my skimmer because it releases far too many microbubbles into the main tank.

I am running carbon in an Aquaclear filter to remove the medication and any other organic release from the cyano die-off.

Can I expect the foam issue to go away on its own? Or should I be doing more water changes (perhaps 50%)?

[sirreal63]

give it a few more days with the carbon, microbubbles in the display aren't a problem...overflowing skimmer cup would be a problem.
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110 Gallon DSA Pentagon

[Pete Harcoff]

I was getting a LOT of microbubbles, though. So much so that my corals retracted, my basslet hid, and my clown seemed to spaz out. I could barely see the back of the tank, they were that thick.

At any rate, I'm not going to have time until the weekend to do any major maintenance, so I'll just run the carbon for now. Come weekend if the foam is still an issue, I'll just do a huge water change.

[Pete Harcoff]

It's been about a week of running carbon and I'm still getting excessive foam/microbubbles. I'm prepping a bigger water change for today, so I hope that will help mitigate the problem.

[Pete Harcoff]

I just did another water change (about 40%) and I'm *still* getting an insane amount of microbubbles.

I'm going to leave my skimmer on for a little while and see if they eventually start to dissipate.

Am I going to have to do an even larger water change?

[SLACkra]

I'm mildly confused. the microbubbles you speak of are coming from the skimmer right? if so water changes are not going to have any impact on them what so ever! you're going to have to devise a way of stopping them entering the tank from the skimmer. such as passing the water from the skimmer return through some mechanical filtration(which will need to be cleaned regularly) before it goes back into the tank.

Andrew

[Pete Harcoff]

The problem started after I dosed with erythromycin tablets. I'm now getting way more foam than usual, which is overwelming my bubble trap.

[Pete Harcoff]

After running my skimmer for a good 5 hours, the excess foam/microbubbles seems to have cleared up. Phew, at least that's one issue down...