If the water in your fish tank is low in dissolved oxygen, the oxygen will stay in the water. Plants use carbon dioxide and produce oxygen through photosynthesis. To prevent air bubbles in water from forming, simply warm the water you’re adding so that it’s the same temperature as that already in the tank. Once the water temperatures equalize, the bubbles will disappear. Again, that’s because you’re adding slightly cooler water to your tank, and the rapid temperature change sometimes causes the dissolved oxygen in the water to turn into a gas and form bubbles. In a similar way, air bubbles can appear during a routine partial water change.

That can happen if you have just installed a new heater in your tank, but the bubbles will stop forming once the water reaches the preset temperature. Well, cold water can carry more oxygen than warm water, and if the cold water suddenly warms up, the dissolved oxygen it contains forms bubbles. Sometimes, air bubbles form near or on your aquarium heater. If that’s not possible, you could try adding more water to the tank to bring the level in line with the filter outflow pipe. To prevent that from happening, you need to reposition the filter outlet pipe so that it rests on or sits just below the water’s surface. If the filter outlet pipe is above the water level, the water flowing into your aquarium can trap air, push it underwater, and generate a stream of tiny bubbles that then float around your tank. It’s usually not the filter unit that’s the bubble-making culprit but the filter outlet that returns the water to the aquarium once it’s been through the filter media. The bubbles drift around in the water until they find a random surface to stick to, which could be the glass, your decorations, or even the filter unit itself. If excessive bubbles form on the water’s surface and cling randomly to objects in your fish tank, that’s most likely caused by the filter outflow.īasically, the filter outflow generates a current that pushes air bubbles around the aquarium. However, if you don’t want to wait long, you can disperse the bubbles with your hand or use an algae magnet. Within a week or so, the air bubbles gradually float to the water’s surface and burst, and that will happen quicker if you’re running a powerful filter. In fact, you don’t really need to do anything, as the problem will naturally take care of itself! The air bubbles that form the first time you fill your tank are the easiest to remove. The newly trapped bubbles rise to the new surface level, leaving a line of the previously formed bubbles below. Well, each time you add more water, the surface level increases, and more bubbles are trapped. If you use a container or a jug to fill the tank, the bubbles sometimes appear in lines. As you add more and more water to your tank, the air bubbles rise up through the water column and stick to the glass. The phenomenon happens when you fill your new fish tank with dechlorinated tap water, trapping pockets of air in the substrate, decoration surfaces, and plant leaves. Don’t panic! That’s quite normal and to be expected. If you just set up a brand-new aquarium, don’t be surprised to see thousands of tiny air bubbles forming on the viewing panes and decorations.

There are several causes of air bubbles forming on the glass panes in a fish tank, most of which are easily solved and can be prevented.

Read this guide to learn why your fish tank is suddenly overcome with bubbles, and discover what you can do about them! What Causes Air Bubbles in a Fish Tank? What’s causing those annoying little bubbles? Why do your fish have air bubbles on them? Can air bubbles harm your fish? And how do you get rid of bubbles on aquarium glass? If you have a brand-new fish tank or a well-established, mature setup, and thousands of silvery bubbles suddenly appear from nowhere, what’s the deal?

Tiny bubbles in tap water