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adamatic

Aquarium Advice Regular
Joined
Apr 5, 2005
Messages
55
Location
Chicago
This morning, I awoke to find the water in my 5 gal planted tank all cloudy with long, white filaments coating the sides of the tank. It seems that a bad kitty had knocked over the carelessly unattached Hagen CO2 filter and the "stinky juice" was pumped into the tank. ':eek2:' I think I caught it fairly early and did a 50% WC this morning and then another 75% about 4 hours later. The only fatality so far (mercifully) is a neon tetra. I still have 2 dwarf puffers (or is it dwarves puffer?), 2 neons and a clown loach swimming with no obvious signs of stress. I'll let you know the water test results...

Should I continue to do water changes? How much and how often? Thanks!
 
test results

Last night's readings were:
pH=7.2
NH3=0
NO2=0
NO3=0

Not surprising due to the massive water changes. This morning, however, the cloudy water is back and I lost another fish. Does anybody have a suggestion??? Keep doing small WCs or let the tank cycle? Any thoughts would be greatly appreciated...
 
You apparently lost your biofilter and have to re-cycle. It's important to keep doing water changes during the cycle so your fish do not get exposed to toxic levels of ammonia or nitrite. I would avoid vacumming the gravel while the tank is cycling.
 
Okay, if I lost my biofilter, what would be the fastest AND safest way to recycle? I have an established, cycled tank that I could use some gravel from. Would this be mixing too many bacterium? Should I just keep waiting for the tank to cycle itself?
 
Using gravel from your established tank would be fine, or you could add some old filter media from your established tank. Either way should speed up the process a lot.
 
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