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| We were out a couple weeks ago and noticed alot of white foam washed up on island shores, etc. We thought soap, but many of the locals totally disagree with that theory. Anyone with some facts or thoughts on this please? |
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Posts: 32886
Location: Rhinelander, Wisconsin | White foam will probably be phosphates. Soap was a good guess. If the white material is sorta 'gooey', it could be a type of algae/turnover material. If it's foamy, it's probably phosphates. |
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Posts: 2427
Location: Ft. Wayne Indiana | Fish pee? |
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Posts: 2515
Location: Waukesha & Land O Lakes, WI | Fish Shampoo??? |
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Posts: 1769
Location: Algonquin, ILL | Actually both Mike & Steve are correct, At one time I used to have a saltwater reef aquarium and I used what was called a protein skimmer to remove biological waste products and other organic materials, the way this worked was the water traveled through a tube which had a large concentration of fine air bubbles the waste proteins would stick to the bubbles which created a foam that could then be removed, In lakes & Rivers wave and wind action does the same thing
Edited by JohnMD 10/5/2004 8:35 AM
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Posts: 5874
| Too early for it to come from fall spawners. So I guess fish jizz is not an option.
Edited by Shep 10/5/2004 10:05 AM
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Posts: 1916
Location: Greenfield, WI | I tell you what, we would be hard pressed to get more great information that we can get here! Fish shampoo, jizz, pee.....How does this website keep from receiving the Nobel Prize for random usefull & useless information!?
We all could never be accused of not thinking outside of the box, heck we don't even know where the box was put!
Edited by Steve Van Lieshout 10/5/2004 2:16 PM
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| Wow! The old timers wanted to know what the answer could possibly be. They are going to love these answers. Thanks |
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Posts: 154
Location: Appleton, WI | John has it right, the water contains all kinds of organic matter leaves, plankton etc, when these accumulate in the surface layer it decreases the surface tension and allows the water to foam from the wind, it will accumulate on the windward side because the organic matter stabilizes the bubbles. |
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Posts: 20219
Location: oswego, il | I know what it is. it's "gee your lake smells terrific".  |
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| Scrubbing Bubbles of course! 
Steve |
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| So are the bubbles a result of polutants or are they a natural part of organic materials?
RM
www.bikinibaitcompany.com
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Posts: 1769
Location: Algonquin, ILL | The correct answer would be both but depending on the area it could be more of one than the other.
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Posts: 154
Location: Appleton, WI | As John said it could be both but can occur on from natural sources on very clean lakes. It is not an indication of water quality, just a phenomenon. |
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White Foam