Help! My 5 year old had fun w/ algae wafers.

[SoCalPhil]

Hi everyone. My 5 year old got in to a bag of algae wafers that I keep on hand and decided it would be fun to dump about 12 of them into my little 10g tank. It has a pleco, 3 Platys and 4 fry that are about 5 days old. Nobody noticed the wafers until last night when my wife got home and said she couldn't see in the tank because it was so cloudy.

I got home, immediately figured out what had happened and started scooping up the now-mushy wafers off the bottom of the tank. I have an Aqueon quietflow 10 filter running in the tank normally. I also have a Tetra Whisper 20 filter from an old tank that I had and never threw out, so I set up that filter at the other side of the tank with a new cartridge in it and have let them run all night. This morning the tank is still super cloudy from the wafers.

Anyone have some suggestions on what I can do to clear this up, and is this having an impact on the health of the Platys and fry? I tested the water a couple of days ago and everything looked great. 0 nitrate and nitrites no ammonia and pH was good as well. Any help is greatly appreciated

 

[armymp327]

Do a 75% to 90% water change, once all that uneaten food starts to break down it will cause an ammonia spike, a water change with a good gravel cleaning should do the trick, you may have to do 2 but give it hour in between if that's the case

 

[SoCalPhil]

Okay...I was wondering about that. I did a 25% change last night, and another 25% change first thing this morning when I saw it wasn't clearing up.

I've never done a change this large. Should I remove the fish to a smaller container (with tank water in it) while I do it? I can't see all these guys swimming around in just a couple of gallons...lol.

 

[Mrs.h2012]

Hi everyone. My 5 year old got in to a bag of algae wafers that I keep on hand and decided it would be fun to dump about 12 of them into my little 10g tank. It has a pleco, 3 Platys and 4 fry that are about 5 days old. Nobody noticed the wafers until last night when my wife got home and said she couldn't see in the tank because it was so cloudy.

I got home, immediately figured out what had happened and started scooping up the now-mushy wafers off the bottom of the tank. I have an Aqueon quietflow 10 filter running in the tank normally. I also have a Tetra Whisper 20 filter from an old tank that I had and never threw out, so I set up that filter at the other side of the tank with a new cartridge in it and have let them run all night. This morning the tank is still super cloudy from the wafers.

Anyone have some suggestions on what I can do to clear this up, and is this having an impact on the health of the Platys and fry? I tested the water a couple of days ago and everything looked great. 0 nitrate and nitrites no ammonia and pH was good as well. Any help is greatly appreciated

That's nothing... My two year old (at the time) decided to dump half a thing of flake food in my 10g... Then later in the year he's dumped some of my daughter's formula in my 10g, it looked like milk had been poured in my tank, it was awful! Anywho, I wouldn't feed for a few days incase they got to eating a lot of the wafers. I would be doing larger water changes just to be on the safe side, like closer to 50%. What kind of substrate do you have? If you have gravel, seriously, and I mean seriously, stir up the gravel to get all the junk out. Just keep an eye on your water params.

 

[thomasina]

Do a 75% to 90% water change, once all that uneaten food starts to break down it will cause an ammonia spike, a water change with a good gravel cleaning should do the trick, you may have to do 2 but give it hour in between if that's the case

Agreed!!!

 

[SoCalPhil]

Yup, I have gravel sub. When I was getting the wafer globs out last night it stirred up a bunch of junk from the bottom. I was thinking the same thing about feeding, but when I gave them just a small pinch of flake this morning they all went crazy on it, even the fry. So I'm guessing they didn't go for the wafers (which they typically don't do anyways).

 

[Sillyfishies]

In a 10 gallon it wouldn't be hard to do a 75-85% waterchange. Leave your fish in and make sure the temps right.