Toddler terrorized our aquariums

[Nay_britt]

My 7 year old has a stomach virus so while I was taking care of her my three year old added the following to our aquariums:

5 Gallon with betta and snail
2 cans of food, 2-3 ounces of Nite Out II and 2-3 ounces of prime water conditioner. I was already dealing with cloudy water that was getting greener by the day so a complete water change might be nice for this one. (Parameters were great even with the green). I keep a bucket of treated water for water changes so I filled a 2.5 gallon tank and put the betta in it.

10 gallon with 4 glo-fish and a snail
This water was crystal clear last night, but water has been testing testing positive for nitrites and "stress'. She put a substantial amount of fish food in this one and now the water in that one looks cloudy/yellowish. OI tried vacuuming the gravel, but my vacuum is too small I think as I bought it for the 2.5 gallon when we had just the better.

What should I do?

 

[Smallfishvt]

Ouch thats a good one... My opinion is just start with the 25-50 percent water changes and maybe 25% every other day. It is going to be messy, but at least it keeps some of the good bacteria in the tank instead of restarting a tank... Second thing I would do is get your fish food and chemicals up high. Fish food good be a major choking hazard since it is so dry and could coat the mouth and throat and could get places like lungs pretty quickly. Who knows what the chems could do!

 

[Byron]

I would do major water changes, with the most thorough vacuuming of the substrate that you can during each. Major meaning 75-80% of the tank volume. Provided the tap water parameters (GH, KH, pH) are close to the tank water parameters, this will cause no harm, and it is needed to get as much of the substances, whole or dissolved, out of the tank fast.

Second thing is that excess food may trigger an increase in ammonia, then nitrite, but the massive water changes (do more than one today, two or three, another tomorrow depending) will deal with this but temporarily until all of the food and whatever else are gone.

Use a water conditioner in the fresh water, and have it the same temperature as the tank (you can judge this with your hand, doesn't have to be exact, but should be very close to avoid further shock).

If you have a test kit for ammonia and/or nitrite, testing the water in the tank before the water change and periodically later then tomorrow would be advisable.

 

[Demeter32]

5gals is a small tank so it should be easy to just drain all the water while vacuuming up all the crud. If there aren't any live plants and just plain old gravel and fake decor I would simply rise the whole thing out with some clean water a few times in the bath tub. Just keep the filter media wet while doing so and rinse it in some fresh water then put everything back together and add the betta back in once the temp is stable. You will want to keep an eye on the parameters to make sure it re-cycles properly, should be ok though.

Same for the other 10gal but I think doing a few back to back 75% water changes for 3 days or so should take care of that one.

So water changes and make sure you don't get any ammonia spikes in the next few days.