Help, 4 yo dumped entire container of food into tank!

[fugarwi]

I had some friends come over and they have a 4 yo. I did not think too much about it as my 4 yo is very good with the tank. I have a 30 gal tank with 25 lbs live rock, 2 damsels (about 5 inches between the two of them) 5 blue leg hermits, and 1 turbo snail.

This young man apparently thought it would be good to add items to the tank. A lot of small toys, mostly plastic, but there is the possibility of metal in them, and an entire container of food went into the tank. The container of flake food was a little bigger than a soda can. I used my fish nets to scoop out as much of the food as possible, put extra filter pads in my filters, and siphoned off what I could. I do approx weekly water changes of 5 gals, so I only had 5 gal ready to add to the tank. I siphoned off as much as I could and put the new 5 gal to the tank, but it is still totally green. I cannot even see the back of the tank.

Since then I have been using my powerheads to spray everything off of my live rock and crushed coral substrate, hoping my filters will catch it. (I have been rinsing the cloth off about every hour and returning to my filters)

I would guess I will experience something like another "cycle" due to the huge amount of ammonia that will appear in the next couple of days? I am afraid I am going to loose my livestock due to this.

Anything I can do to help this? I immediately started ageing 10 gals of new sw, but that is the most I can make based on my current set up.

Any ideas?

 

[Sadielynn]

Do you have access to either a skimmer or a second filter ? If you have access to a skimmer
I would hook up and run htat for a few days frequently empting the skimmer cup . If not I would get a second filter and start running that changing the filter pads every day or atleast rinsing them every day and changing them weekly use the filters that have carbons as this will help absorbe any leeched metals that may have gotten into the tank, tho I am sure you got them out right quickly ... You will aslo want to do 20% water changes for the next week every day or every other day ... You may see a small cycle but it should not be that bad ... AS for mixing salt water , when you do your change , start another batch right away , if possible get a tote bin that you can mix one and airate the other so you have a revolving bucket ... I think that you will be ok just set up to do several water changes , testing daily to be sure that all remains in check as well.

 

[roka64]

I agree, you might also want to invest in some Purigen http://www.drsfostersmith.com/produ...&Ntx=mode+matchallpartial&Np=1&pc=1&N=0&Nty=1 along with PWCs this should help to reduce the ammonia, nitrItes and nitrAtes, it will also polish your water, you might add some GAC, to help clear up the color in the water.

 

[MT79]

As sadielynn and roka said test everyday(maybe twice at first), run GAC and an ammonia neutralizer may help. Keep manually removing as much as possible. If you see ammo or nitrite I would recommend large PWC's daily until things are back to normal. I would suggest buying a new trash can to make 20-25 gal SW at a time in, if large PWC's are necessary. HTH and good luck.

 

[melosu58]

I agree with all of the above as far as running GAC and daily PWC`s. If you see any floating food at the bottom draw it out with your siphon. Luckily you got to it early and should not be too bad.

 

[fugarwi]

Well, bad news. After sucking out as much as humanly possible, and having my skimmer running full blast with two filters going, I lost the tank. My skimmer was filling up about every 4-5 hours, and even when my tank cycled I never collected 1/20 of that amount in a day, let alone a few hours. The water looked like it was beginning to clear, I could finally see the back of the tank and I went to bed at midnight, and when I got up at 6 30, the water in the tank was green. I pulled out all of my live rock and netted for my damsels, but found they had died. I did not even bother doing testing on the water as it smelled worse than curing live rock, and I could only see about 2 inches deep into the tank.

I placed my live rock into a tub of sw I had made about midnight the night before (10 gals) and found my turbo snail and two hermits where still alive. I drained the rest and rinsed my crushed coral substrate, and washed the tank and all of the filters, ph etc. I put the tank back together and filled with newly made sw, and plan on putting the live rock and turbo/hermits back in the tank after using the water they are in to kinda rinse them off.

Once back in, I just plan to test the water for a while to see if it cycles again, or what I get before I decide to add any fish. Can I count on loosing my turbo and hermits? Should I add flakes to the tank to provide detris for them to feed on - based on the water quality?

I am making up 20 gal of sw for future changes so it will be ready. Anything else I should think about?

thanks,.
Bummed.

 

[Sadielynn]

Sorry for your loss , it happens you did all you could .
Looks like you have a plan but before putting your snails and hermits in I would just put the LR in and cycle it like a new tank, keeping your inverts in a bucket with the old salt H20 and maybe a piece of rock for them to climb about feeding perhaps once a week then when your are "recycled" you can place your CUC in .... The other thing you may wish to look about is covering the top with some egg crate to prevent stuff being thrown in , tho that will not help with the most of the foods , so perhaps a glass top for when visitors are there then remove it , it should not effect your PH in a negative way if it is only on for a few hours at a time, also look in to moving your food to a "safe" area should help from future disasterous feedings .

 

[roka64]

Are you planning on switching to a sand substrate? If so, you might be able to get away with adding your LR and possibly some LS (not sure how much is really live). Check to see if there is an expiration date on it. You can also look into purigen, to help reduce ammonia, nitrItes and nitrAtes. That way you might not even see a new cycle. I would keep testing and have plenty of PWCs water on hand. Are you going to say anything to the parents of the child?

 

[Sadielynn]

I am not sure if they are good friends ,but saying something negative about little Johnny may cost a friendship. However I do think that it may be worth mentioning what the damage is to his parents. I think that for the replacement of fish and the cost of more sand as well as extra costs to filter and other reasonable steps that you needed to take to mitigate your damages . I do think that they should foot atleast part of the bill or resetup 90% /10% liability , they would foot 90% since they did not properly watch little Johnny , you 10 % since the food was left in an easy access area , as well as the fact that he could fit toys in . I have always told my neice and nephew if they wish to feed the fish they MUST ask first ,I only see them once in a blue moon tho . Not all childern are behaved like my neice and nephew ,the other neice is only 8 months old so she cant do any damage LOL , or like your child who was taught to respect the tank. I do feel that it is a matter of pricipal but the other parents should pay up.

 

[fugarwi]

Oh, the other parents are great, they also have had fish, and understand it goes far beyond loosing a couple of fish. They see the big picture of time spent and the work put into the tank etc... They are good enough friends I do not need to ask them to talk with their son, or ask them for payment. They have already taken care of that. We decided all of us would goto the lfs and pic out some fish and lr etc for replacement so their son also has a "claim" to the fish tank. And you are absolutely correct. A large part of the problem was I did not put the food in a place where it was locked away. I lock away all of my testing equipment and supplements, so I definately should have done the same with the food. That is where I am beating myself up, I cannot blame the 4 yo, he just decided he wanted to feed the fish, and did what he thought he should do. So far my cleaning crew has made it, and the tank is coming back. The one bonus of this is my children now painfully understand why my rules about feeding are in place, so I know I will not have any problems with them. On the bright side, I was planning on selling the damsels back to my lfs and getting less aggressive fish as after I have had a tank for a while, I found that is what I am looking for. Anyway, thanks for the advice.