Syrup In Tank ... Cloudy Tank ... Fish Swimmng 4 Oxygen

[didz04]

Hi its not gone well since one of my imature relatives has put in syrup into the tank yesterday while I was out and now it has become very cloudy and sticky inside of the tank, it looks like oil ontop of water with those circles but I definitely knows its syrup that has made that affect.
I did a quarter water change and now the tank has become much more cloudier and the fish are swimming on top breathing much deeper and trying to get oxygen.
What shall I do should I do a really big water change or shall I take all the fish out then do it? It seems serious including when the oxygen pump is on but they are still looking for oxygen.

Thanks in advance and please quick advice...

 

[SlyPolak]

Did you check whats in the syrup??

I would just keep doing water changes to try to dillute the contaminant.

MAYBE some PRIME would help but I dont know


Try to "scoop" some of it out also if its still sitting on top lik in the Gulf of Mexico

 

[kiriyama]

Had a similiar experience (but not with syrup), I took all fish out, changed all the water, 50% then 50% again then 75% , lots of big changes, I cleaned all filter media, in the end I bacame so paranoid I removed all the substrate, during the times when I removed water for the water changes I cleand glass, plants , rocks etc.
Hope you get this fixed, it's pretty horrible watching them up top gasping

 

[the biffster]

what type of syrup did he put in
the tank if it floating on the top of the water try using
fish net and kitchen towel to remove as much as you
can like slypolak said you could try adding some
prime to see if that would help and keep doing the water changes
this will help dilute the said syrup also if there is
space in you filter for some carbon

hope this helps

 

[SlyPolak]

OH, the carbon... YES , forgot about that

WATER CHANGES + PRIME + CARBON......
good luck

 

[JoshuaA]

OH, the carbon... YES , forgot about that

WATER CHANGES + PRIME + CARBON......
good luck

+ slapping some sense into your relative.

Good luck, I imagine the syrup would of sank though being denser than water.

 

[SlyPolak]

Could be the "bonding" agent in the syrup or glucose or whatever is in it, maybe the sugar... I doubt its "all-natural"

Anywayz... who did pour it in

 

[didz04]

Thanks a lot everyone that was very quick advice but I didn't get time to reply as I realized my fish getting worse and my fairy cichlid lieing on its side and sometimes spinning and ontop of that the tank glass sides were just building up thicker made it harder to see in tank so I knew I had to take action right away. I had to take all my rocks out noooo lol all that time setting them up and I feel like I won't be able to make the tank look as good as it did but hopefully will figure it out, I might just look at the pictures i took and do the exact same layout lol. It was fairly easy taking the fish out as they were at the top and slow moving but while i was taking the rocks out I had to be carefull tht I didn't drop a ton of rock slides onto my fish, because when I moved one rock the other moved as they were joined and locked in so had to be very careful.
My biggest rock that weighed a lot had the striped raphael in there and so i had to tilt it to one side and lift up to get him out the deep holes was just hoping that the rock doesn't slip out my hand otherwise oops I put all the fish into a big bucket holding around 40lt of water. I drained out all the water from the tank and left outside to be cleaned, tank just left with the sand. This took a lot out of me and even now really tired from all this, but it has done a lot of good for me as when the fish were breathing for oxygen ontop I also found a line of small babies gasping for air they had finally developed and out from the female malawi's mouth my dad saw a couple of them get eaten but altogether I have 15 surviving baby malawi's. They were cute little shaking creatures Once I had everything out of the tank except sand and the tank put outside it got me thinking that I was going to upgrade my tank but not much bigger and I have found one on for sale nearby. The reason was that my tank is scratched from inside and so I have problems with algae growing in the scratches that really shows up on the screen. Another reason was that I had a load of jelly stuff already on the screen where these miniature worm creatures roamed all the tank glass and on the rocks so I needed to get rid of that as it makes the tank look dirty from the outside but really its clear on the inside every water change I had to sponge them off. I wanted to change my substrate to black sand and also needed to move the tank else where in house. The the tank I currently have is 12" from back to front but I need atleast 15" because my Ocean rock uses up most of the space and was hoping fish to swim more at front, the tank I have found is 15" back to front.

So there is a lot of reasons why this hasn't become that much of a disaster and has helped me to do a lot of big changes that I wouldn't usually do because its a lot of effort but this has almost forced me into doing it which is a positive effect. So I have decided to leave the fish in 2 big buckets for te meantime, don't worry they are pretty big and I have added a air bubble pump in both buckets for oxygen. So for today wednesday I am picking up my new tank hopefully and buying black sand.
The only problem now is that since with the filter being very sticky I will have to clear it out completely and also buying a brandnew sponge for it, I do have some carbon but not sure yet on how I am going to fix these pieces in to the filter as never used it, it came with the tank. The tank will need to be cycled again and I am wanting to do a fishless cycle or will it be a good idea in this case by doing a fishincycle because I can't keep the fish in the bucket while its being cycled. However I will ask the lfs if they can keep my fish in their tanks for the time being and ask them if I can use their filter media to quicken up the process. I will need a few suggestions please if possible & thanks in advance.

So then what a day just crazy but also very interesting lol but of course as you will imagine very fustrating including when your fish are in that situation and yes Kiriyama its not a very good sight and makes you feel guilty yourself to see them like this, must be horrible for them

I guess at the moment I am handling it well and I know what to do for tomorrow, will update everyone on how things go..Seriously thanks soooo much everyone for your advise and thoughts it has helped and more is welcome

Thanks

 

[didz04]

Could be the "bonding" agent in the syrup or glucose or whatever is in it, maybe the sugar... I doubt its "all-natural"

Anywayz... who did pour it in

Oh by the way it was my 7 year old cousin who did it he thought it would be food for them but instead it would have been an early death if I kept them in there any longer

 

[didz04]

OH, the carbon... YES , forgot about that

WATER CHANGES + PRIME + CARBON......
good luck

+ slapping some sense into your relative.

Good luck, I imagine the syrup would of sank though being denser than water.

It did look like most of it was at the top but it was definitely building up on the sides. When I did the water change it just became more cloudier because I think when the new water splashed in then the syrup just moved around more. According to my dad he said my cousin was messing around with a bottle of almond oil lol so possible chance that he has put oil in there to The reason why he had access to all these stuff because my grandma has her bed in the living room as she has had a stroke and carers come down to clean her and give injections. The tank is in the same room as her and all her stuff is at the side of the bed. Hopefully the new tank will not be in the same living room and into either my kitchen or other living room.