[APD] Has the cause of surface scum been found?

[Thomas Barr <tcbiii at earthlink_net>]

Well I tried it out, this weird idea of mine and it was night and day.
I cannot say it's true for every case but it is true for this case and many
others I've played with over the years and I believe....that it can be
generalized to one of the main primary causes for surface scum in planted
tanks.

The idea: 
General good plant growth produces clean surface waters. Lowering the CO2
level below optimal levels of 20ppm+ etc produced large amounts of surface
scum layer. It seems that when plants are stressed for CO2, either from a
temporary or also perhaps a chronic lowering of CO2, that they produce/leak
out lipids and/or proteins.

The scum also dissipates quickly when CO2 levels are returned to 20+ppm and
hence O2 levels are returned to that of a normal thriving planted tank.

Whether the production stops of the lipid/protein leakage from the plants or
if the higher O2 levels dissolve the scum layer, I'm not certain.

But I can certainly correlated high CO2 with less surface scum.
Does anyone know of any analysis done of this scum layer in a planted tank?
It seems that the plants leak this scum out but it might be something else.

Regards, 
Tom Barr

    

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