I'm Sunch An Idiot...

[@ombomb]

Did my weekly water change yesterday and had a big clear out of the tank which had got rather over grown. I removed one of the monster amazon swords (40cm leaves) and thinned the other down, took out half the vallis which is spreading like wildfire etc etc. Tank looked fantastics afterwards, the fin rot a couple of my loaches had picked up off some cardinal tetra of dubious quality from my fish shop a week or two ago and everything was clean and healthy. My filter was making a bit of a noise from a bit of trapped air, so I reprimed it and went to bed...

Woke up this morning and on a whim went into the lounge to see if I could see anything swimming around in the darkness (6am), to find the filter chugging like a diesel engine and all the fish on the surface of the water. When I'd put the filter back away, the return pipe must have twisted and had kinked in the night, cutting off most of the return flow to the tank, so little or no filtration and little or no water movement. Did a quick test and confirmed that there was an amonia spike so we had a pre-dawn 50% water change in my dressing gown and fingers crossed there was enough water movement in the filter to keep the majority of the bacteria alive.

Hopefully someone will read this and not make the same stupid mistake!

 

[Dangerousdan]

[quote post='993613

 

[Discomafia]

Ouch! I wouldn't have expected an ammonia spike so fast, after just a few hours. How long has your tank been cycled for, and is it heavily stocked? Do you have an airpump, a gang valve and some airstones that you could use in the future? In addition to reducing the water level to increase surface agitation, using the airtones as well will provide adequate O2 in your tank in case of such an accident happening again.

Just out of curiosity, what filter were you using?

 

[timmystood]

Damm!

Hope it turns out OK for you.

 

[@ombomb]

It was about 8 hours and by spike, I mean that there was some in there, not much, but enough to cause distress. Having said that, I think the lack of water movement, is probably the biggest problem. If the lights had been on I doubt there would have even been an issue as it’s still heavily planted and they'd have taken up the majority of the Amonia and have providing plenty of O². Filter is an Eheim classic.

Oh well, you live and learn.

 

[Inchworm]

Hi @ombomb

Don't blame yourself about this; accidents do happen. Your filter will recover in no time at all. I use AquaClears in many of my tanks and whenever the power goes off for more than a flicker, one or the other of them will stop and need help getting restarted. It always turns out to be OK.

 

[rdd1952]

We have all made mistakes. I have forgotten to plug the filters and heater back in after doing a water change and not noticed it for about 10 hours. The fish were all fine though when I noticed it the next morning. Hope they all recover fully.

 

[OohFeeshy]

Know the feeling, I just found out that not only was the Elite Mini not up to full flow rate, the Fluval ws bloacked up with rubbish and one of the khuli's had swam in there and died So I only really had a small sponge filter working

 

[rimmer 05]

i had my 100% water change yesterday, and i had to poor my water out of the tank at the bottom, with the gravel, little did i no it was coming out my little corner bit wer heater filter and pump are, and went all over my electrics! it was a riht pharse

 

[@ombomb]

Looks like the water change this morning did the trick, all swimming around normally!

Going to do a small change now just to be on the safe side, but I think they'll all be fine.