Medication Overdose And Ph Buffer

[jon345]

Hello all,

we have just set up a 60Liter Tank. The Tapwater we have in this area is quiet high in PH (around 8 ) and due to this we had to insert a PH Buffer to get it down to a 7.5 to get fish.
After inserting the PH Buffer, the water is gone quiet cloudy and did not clear in the last 2 days.
My impatient girl friend talked me into getting the first fishes as all seemed to be fine and watertesting at the local store did not indicate any kind of problems.
We inserted the first fishes even with the water beeing cloudy but then the fatal error!



We flouted the bag with the fishes still in the tank before introdusing and dosed the medication for the white spot disease but by accident we inserted 4 times the amount requested!!
The water turned blue within seconds and thats when the penny dropped: DAMN! Overdosed.

To minimise the trouble, we took around 50% of the water out of the tank and inserted tapwater. As we had only the ph test kit at home, we only could check this parameter and surprisingly it was fine.
As the colour of the water was only still slightly blue, we desided to insert the fishes to the tank as they seemed to really get stressed in the bag.

24hours later, the fishes are still alive and my girlfiend banned from the tank.
But until now, the water is still slightly blue but very cloudy.

Any ideas how much damage we have caused with it? Will the filter be able to take the cloud out and is it likely that this cloud is still caused by the ph buffer?



Maybe you can help?

Regards Jon

 

[Tempestuousfury]

What fish did you add?

I'd say doing another 50% or so change, maybe 25%, since you have twice the dosage of meds still in there.

Have you removed any carbon from the filter? Do you know how to cycle a tank? It seems maybe you don't, but, then again, you could have just chosen to cycle the tank with fish. *shrugs* You said you added new tap water... I take it you dechlorinated it, though, right?

As for the cloudy water, if it is related to the pH buffer, I would not be able to help, since I have neither used nor researched these at any decent length...
-However, normally it is cheaper, and safer, to just get fish that do well at the natural pH of your tap water. Therefore, if possible for this tank, or at least for you next tank, I would suggest just getting African cichlids or other fish that are from waters with a high pH.