okay so in this video I'm going to cover
two different topics one is this film
that has developed on the surface of the
water in my new fish tank so I'm going
to talk about the eheim skim 350 surface
skimmer and then the last thing if you
keep watching i will show you at the end
of the video that i found baby fish in
the gravel of my tank now even though
the surface is covered with this in
protein film I want you to notice that
the main part of my aquarium is crystal
clear so other than cutting down on the
oxygen exchange of the service and
impeding some light it's not really
harmful here's the eheim skim 350 a
surface skimmer notice that it says
remove surface films and microorganisms
from the water surface this isn't really
a filter so what it does is it draws the
film from the surface of water down into
this little sponge a very coarse sponge
i'm going to show you in a minute and
recirculates it right back into your
aquarium water now that's not terrible
because it actually will draw the film
and whatever other materials on the
surface of your tank if they pass
through the little sponge filter on this
Eheim system it'll ultimately end up in
your over the side filter or in my case
I Hydor canister filter and this is a
very simple mechanism there's a little
float that slides up and down so that
when your surface water if you dewater or
for dehydration it will stay at the
surface that has little cavities
underneath of it they keep it full of
air so that it stays right there you
also have control over the power of the
filter and you have three suction cups
so that it can stick to the back of your
fish tank now this is black you'll
notice later that when we put this in
the tank and it shows up in the video it
looks kind of light grey that just has
to do with the refraction of light
inside the fish tank and this is a
little motor with an impeller
and right here you can see the sponge
again not a very effective filter system
but it will trap like some people have
small plants and debris that floats on
the surface it will trap large particles
but that protein film is just going to
go through this filter and be broken up
and recycled back into the tank always
when you get something new wash it out
with fresh water before you put it in
your tank here it is look how it looks
grey it's actually of course black as
you've seen earlier you can wrap the
electrical cord through that little
bracket that's on the back there so it holds
it in place and again check it to make
sure the extension is up to where it
won't come out and when I turn it on
look at this this is full power though
and look how it sucked down the top so
it does overwhelm the floats a little
bit you also want to make sure to turn
this off when you're feeding your fish
if you have flake food on the top but on
full power look at all these bubbles
that get blown around inside the tank so
there are micro bubbles that just go
everywhere it's pretty interesting of
course if you put it on the lowest power
setting then you don't get these bubbles
at all so I'm showing you kind of what
it will view worst-case scenario and you
also notice that the receiving top is
sitting low and that's because the
suction is so strong when you put it on
the lighter setting and of course it
sticks a little higher on the surface of
your water but it cleared up the surface
of the water right away so this is a 54
gallon bowfront corner tank so the
surface area isn't that huge but it
cleaned it up immediately and of course
now have to show you the interior of the
tank and these fish have been in the
tank a little over a month and this
leads me to the second part of my video
but I do want to say of course this Eheim
skim 350 is absolutely silent it only draws
five watts and since my house is
entirely solar-powered of course power
consumption is an issue so we keep it
down
and see down here it it works perfect
you can turn it off if you want to I
mean you don't have to run it all the
time I'm just going to leave it on at
its lowest setting and there's little
veiled angelfish going by there now what
I'm showing you on the gravel or the
bottom of my tank is that I've been of
course doing partial water changes
frequently new tank you want to keep the
ammonia down the nitrites down while it
continues to cycle and I noticed in the
bottom of the bucket that there were a
little tiny fish and who knows how long
you know we've been sucking the
substrate and getting the debris and
stuff out when you use a siphon to clean
and change water in your tank who knows
how many fish have been discarded that
way and I noticed that see these neon
tetras are looking at this grass area
and they hover around that a lot plus
when you first turn the lights on in the
morning the zebra danios are zipping
through there and I noticed that the
zebra danios look like they're they're
ready to lay eggs because they even
wiggle through this grass and then I
noticed the angelfish and the other
fishes hover around here and I think
they're just eating baby fish but unless
you really really look you wouldn't
notice some look at this plastic tub and
if you look carefully you see these tiny
fry in the bottom of this tub and they
are Danio babies so there are also
little eggs here's three of them in a
row i use the pipette and actually check
out maybe 27 of these baby fish and this
is just the ones that i came across
randomly so i have to think they're all
over the tank so if you're keeping
danios or some other fish species that
reproduces easily in a tank pay close
attention i'm going to show you what
they look like in the gravel here in a
minute and it is amazing that they
survive at all
it when you look at them up close it's
like they have little food sacks on them
and I've isolated them so that they'll
get eaten and this is what I want you to
see this is a gravel shot up against the
glass inside the tank that is Daniel
Frye so I wasn't able to use my camera
on my microscope otherwise it would have
shown you a microscopic image of these
little fry because it's amazing the
little flecks of color that are in their
skin and that their eyes are so
metallic-looking and here's another one
you see the fry here on this little rock
if that were a black rock I wouldn't
even notice it so I've altered the
lighting here a little bit so you can
get a better look but it really is
amazing and they free swim through the
openings of this aquarium gravel so and
there it is so I just wanted to share
with you that if I hadn't been really
looking closely at the debris that's
ending up in the bucket when I'm
changing water on the fish tank I never
would have noticed look to the right
there is a little Daniel egg and there's
an embryo inside and it actually
twitches and moves around in there so I
have to think that they're they're
spawning frequently and just dropping
eggs everywhere so I hope you enjoyed
that I hope you enjoyed the fish tank
video and thanks for watching as always