Fish Flake Disaster

[ACEHearts]

My 3.5yr old decided the fish were hungry today... and dumped an almost full jar of flake into the tank. By the time I noticed the flake had all settled to the bottom.

I quickly got the siphon out and sucked up as much as I could, doing about a 30% water change at that point, and topped up the water again. We left for a while and when we came back the tank was cloudy, so I took the plastic plants out and did about a 15% water change again as I sucked out more flake. I have probably 95% of the flake out of the tank now, and am reluctant do do any more of a water change, because as it was it would be a shock. I added "cycle" to the tank to help balance things out.

I haven't done a water test, I don't have a kit at the momment, but the tank specs are:

10Gal tank

2 guppy adults
several fry (I fully expect these to not make it, but so far they are doing fine. I'm just letting nature take it's course with them for now, not much else I can do, I don't have another tank to move everyone to)
3 oto cats
several ghost shrimp (about 5-8)

I have had the tank for a few months now, everything was running smoothly... until I left the bottle of flake down instead of up on the shelf.

So, what else can I do right now? Can I continue to do water changes to help clear everything out? Just wait it out and cross my fingers?

The fish *seem* to be fine right now, right down to the fry, even though the water is cloudy, if that helps.

Thanks!

Cindy

 

[phlawed]

My 3.5yr old decided the fish were hungry today... and dumped an almost full jar of flake into the tank. By the time I noticed the flake had all settled to the bottom.

I quickly got the siphon out and sucked up as much as I could, doing about a 30% water change at that point, and topped up the water again. We left for a while and when we came back the tank was cloudy, so I took the plastic plants out and did about a 15% water change again as I sucked out more flake. I have probably 95% of the flake out of the tank now, and am reluctant do do any more of a water change, because as it was it would be a shock. I added "cycle" to the tank to help balance things out.

I haven't done a water test, I don't have a kit at the momment, but the tank specs are:

10Gal tank

2 guppy adults
several fry (I fully expect these to not make it, but so far they are doing fine. I'm just letting nature take it's course with them for now, not much else I can do, I don't have another tank to move everyone to)
3 oto cats
several ghost shrimp (about 5-8)


I have had the tank for a few months now, everything was running smoothly... until I left the bottle of flake down instead of up on the shelf.

So, what else can I do right now? Can I continue to do water changes to help clear everything out? Just wait it out and cross my fingers?

The fish *seem* to be fine right now, right down to the fry, even though the water is cloudy, if that helps.

Thanks!

Cindy

well the good news is you have ghost shrimp that will eat everything they can in the next few hours and are very hardy. I think the cats will do the same until they are full. You might lose some fry but im unsure of this(never dealt with livebearers). But overall, i feel you have done all you can for now. It sounds like you handled it well. Give it 24hrs or so and do another cleaning and 10-25% water change. I think it will be fine. But, let some others try this further if my info is wrong

 

[ACEHearts]

Thanks!

I bought extra ghost shrimp today after the "incident", since I knew they would help with the cleanup, and really add very little to the biomass of the tank (plus they are way cool to watch, so I don't mind having a few extras)

I'll just cross my fingers, and not look at the tank til tomorrow, and hope things are better than.

Oh... and the new jar of flake is a SMALL one.. and kept well out of reach! LOL!

Cindy

 

[xamdarb]

haha not the first time i heard the samme story.
i would not worry to much sounds like you handled it alright good luck!

 

[tttnjfttt]

You can do extra water changes tomorrow, which will help remove anything left. Also, cycle really does nothing to help, but since your tank has been established for a while, you should be fine.

On a side note, I have heard people asking the pharmacy for an empty perscription bottle to keep fish flakes in so children can't feed the fish. Hope that helps some!