Fish Food Accident

[zombeezee]

Hi,
To late now, but what should i have done?
Had a small 25L tank.
Cheeky 2yr old niece came around and poured whole container of flake into tank.
I have no spare tank.
First casualty within 90 mins (before i got home)
Sucked out as much as possible which meant 80% water thrown. replaced with fresh.
Next day 12 dead ones
Changed more water.
Now at 48 hours - only guppies and cats alive (6 total) in cloudy water.
What should I have done? What might I do now to save the remainders?

(i have no speare tank or anything)

cheers

M

 

[Miss Wiggle]

water change water change water change water change

test levels daily, tank's probably cycled again as it think there's loads more fish to deal with (extra waste) clooudy water is bacterial bloom which backs this up.

just keep taking doing water changes daily.

preventative measure. lock fish food up, important really if kids are around, if you keep dechlorinator, meds, supplements etc in the house then not only could the kid pollute the tank with them, they could do themselves a lot of damage if they swallowed them. treat your fish supplies as you would your medicine cupboard, if kids are regularly in the house stroe them locked away out of reach.

 

[CFC]

It sounds like you done all that could be done in that situation, the only thing that could have been advised is to remove as much of the food as possible and perform a large water change, then keep an eye on the water parameters and do more water changes as necessary.

The reason the problem escalated so fast is the size of the tank, if the 25L reads right then there were far too many fish for such a small tank and the oxygen levels would have dropped very rapidly.

 

[zombeezee]

Thanks
I know, I know.
Shouldn't leave the food around - but its the kids tank and they are pretty good. Wasnt expecting the visitor.
Shouldn't have so many fish - 28L tank. But they have all been fine for the last 9 months without a death, so they were happy enough

Thanks

 

[Colin_T]

You did everything you could zombeezee. First thing you do is syphon out as much as you can and do a massive water change. Followed by more big water changes. Just keep doing huge, almost complete water changes and gravel clean each day. Make sure any new water going in the tank is free of chlorine and has a similar temp to the tank. I would make up some water straight after I had done a water change and have it standing overnight ready for the next day.
Don't feed the fish for a few weeks. They will be fine without food. And don't touch the filters for a bit either. If you have to wash out the filters then only do half the filter material and make sure you wash it out in a bucket of tank water.

 

[C horse]

if kids are regularly in the house stroe them locked away out of reach.

Have tried this Miss Wiggle... they always seem to get out...lolol