Help!!! Daughter dumped all the fish food in the tank

[usmcr0811]

My 2 1/2 year old daughter dumped an entire 3.5 oz can of small pellet fish food into the tank. I scooped out a bunch but a lot are under the rocks and places I can't get to. All I have in the tank is 2 damsel and about 4 snales. Should I buy a bunch more damsels to take care of all that food? any suggestions

[TAF]

I am more experieced with fresh water, but the treatment is probably the same.... use a gravel-vac to try to get as much food out as possible and then water change like crazy until the food is finnished decaying.

You may also want to prepair a quarantine tank to move your fish to if the water stats get very bad.

[uscharalph]

I'd buy some hermit crabs. They're pretty cheap.

[bertoni]

I'd get all the food out I could, and then start watching the ammonia level. Water changes would be good, and a chemical like Prime or Amquel can help with ammonia, too.

Adding animals won't help much, if at all. They might make the situation worse.

[ReefDent]

Clean out as much as you can, run the skimmer a little wetter, if possible, and test for ammonia.

Be glad she didn't do what I did when I was a little younger than she to my father's one tank- I cranked up the heater on a tank of freshwater angels just about ready for sale... cooked the little buggers...

James

[demonsp]

Jenny craig. I would use a powerhead with a HOB filter and while debris floating do a water change to remove as much as possible. Then repeat in 1 week. Also removeing as much as possible via vac or turkey baster before starting the powerhead.

[jake32010]

get a bunch of hirmt crabs or more the rocks to get the food out with a vac.

[BangkokMatt]

Clean as much out as you can. Do a series of water changes and wet skim - even if you pull out a lot of water. This can easily be topped up with the water changes.
You are in for a busy few days !

[meco65]

My self I would take the rock out and clean any food I found out from under it. I know its a lot of work but it just might save a lot of trouble later. JMO.

[Sk8r]

Get your fish out to qt, into clean water, and treat it as yet one more qt experience. Put your inverts there, too. If you can't get this food out of there, you're going to cycle again. Eventually it will settle down, the ammonia will drop, and you can put your inverts in, then your fish.

Have a talk with daughter, one of those, This is MY tank---I feed the fish! talks. Have a talk with spouse, while you're at it about: No windex or furniture polish near the tank: put it on a cloth in the kitchen and bring it in if you must. And if giving a party, stand by your tank and watch it like a hawk: something impells some people to toss in pennies, which are of course, lethal...the number of people lurking to spring upon your tank and wreak havoc are many, but those are the 3 usual. Having access to a diatom filter if daughter is apt to repeat this performance might be a Good Idea. A diatom filter can 'polish' water to a faretheewell within hours and can rescue you from such things.
And putting a lock on all fishfood and chemicals is another Good Idea. Plus not leaving your mag float attached, so nobody can help you 'clean the glass' and wipe out your rockwork or pick up sand and scratch your glass.

[usmcr0811]

Thanks everyone for your great ideas. I got out almost all of the food and the water stinks really bad. I also did a 25 percent water change. Lucky for me, I had just enough salt water mixed up from a few days ago to get a 25 percent today. Water looks really cloudy. Maybe I will just wait it out and do another 20 percent change in another week. That sucks because that will be my third water change in as many weeks. Oh well.

My daughter and I have had this talk before when we had a 5 gallon with gold fish. It is my fault as much as it is hers. I pushed the couch up against the tank last night so I could sit and watch my fish for a while before I went to bed and never pushed it back. I have to say it was kind of cute when she came in from the living room and said. "fish food all gone daddy". I knew it had been too quiet in there!!!

[kathainbowen]

<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=11125925#post11125925 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by usmcr0811
My daughter and I have had this talk before when we had a 5 gallon with gold fish. It is my fault as much as it is hers. I pushed the couch up against the tank last night so I could sit and watch my fish for a while before I went to bed and never pushed it back. I have to say it was kind of cute when she came in from the living room and said. "fish food all gone daddy". I knew it had been too quiet in there!!!

Might I recommend two things related to small children and tanks?

If you venture out to your Bed, Bath and Beyond or Linens & Things, you can find some REALLY great storage things. If you're lucky enough to live nearby a Container Store, go there!!! Leave your daughter at home and play with some of the merchandise there, figuring out which containers are going to be pretty tough for her to figure out. Have some fun with it.... so long as you don't really frighten the staff. You could even go to your local army/navy and pick up an old ammo box. At any rate, use something like that to store things in that you don't want your daughter to get into. Food stuffs. Test kits. Buffers. Anything like that. This way, there's a slightly slimmer chance she'll get into that stuff.

However, if she does like feeding the fish, while at your local Bed, Bath and Beyond, Linens & Things, Container Store, Target, etc, look for one of those tiny pillboxes you can put in your purse or pocket. This way, you can store a small portion of food by the tank, while putting up the rest of your food where she can't reach. This way, should she ever be overly tempted again to feed the fish against your rules, she won't get as much in there.




.... by the by.... the mental image I have of her right now saying "food all gone," is too precious! :inlove:

[pablodub01]

Well... Other thing you can do is put a lot of polishing media in your external canister then use a powerhead to blast the bits of food from behind or under the rocks... the media in the canister should retain all the food bits... then just replace the media

[Vinnie71975]

<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=11124284#post11124284 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by jake32010
get a bunch of hirmt crabs or more the rocks to get the food out with a vac.

Agreed a Bunch Of Hermits will do a Solid Job cleaning say 10 to 15 hermits shouldn't cost you more than 20.00 and should work alot easier than some drastic tank cleaning!

[meco65]

You said:"I got out almost all of the food and the water stinks really bad.
Water looks really cloudy. "

This being the case I would do a large water change say 40% to 50%, this would more than likely be less stressful on the tank then a spike that could kill every thing. Than in two days if it has not cleared up do another large water change every two days till the water clears up, will save the tank. IMO.

[meco65]

The food has already dissolved into the water and crabs at this point would not help.

[usmcr0811]

Ok, I love the ammo box idea and I was in the Marines so I happen to have an extra one in my garage right now that I'm not using. So I will try storing my fish stuff in there.

Yesterday I thought I had gotten most of the food out but today I did some more searching and found a bunch more food hidden in a crack in the rock. I sucked out as much of that food that I could and did another 5 gallon water change as that is all the salt mix I had left. I will order more today. Are adding extra chemicals to treat the water a good idea at this point along with my water changes. The only thing that I have in the tank right now that I don't want to die is a huge worm thing that lives in one of the rocks. I have no idea what it is and found it 2 nights ago for the first time after having the rock for 2 months now. It has to be over 4 inches long. I have no idea what it is but I saw it eat 2 pieces of the fish food!

[zotzer]

You may want to "turkey baster" all of your rock....squirt hard inside all of the holes and crevices.....and drag a fine fish net all through the water to try to grab up whatever floats out. Then skim super ultra wet and do lots of water changing.

Let us know how it is going!!!
Tracy

[RobNJ]

Grab a phosban reactor, pack it with carbon. will help wonders witht he clouding, plus will suck up some of the pollutants in the water...

[bertoni]

I'd do some large water changes, maybe 50-60% or more.

[usmcr0811]

Well the good news is my water is clearing up finally, the bad news is I just bought some more salt mix online and it will take about 6 days to arrive. I am also out of nitrate/nitrite test strips which will also be shipped at the same time. I don't understand how my water could have gotten so cloudy and had such a small ammonia spike. It seems like it would have gotten a lot worse then it did.

Is it normal to add 1 gallon of non salt water a day just to top it off? That is about what I am adding every day and it seems like its a lot but I guess that would only be about 1 percent of my total water volume if you include the sump. The tank is also in the same room as our corn stove so that probably makes a difference too.

[bertoni]

Well, so far, so good!

One gallon per day isn't that bad for evaporation.

[JMCAquarium]

<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=11124587#post11124587 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by meco65
My self I would take the rock out and clean any food I found out from under it. I know its a lot of work but it just might save a lot of trouble later. JMO.

I second the same happened to me and wish I had pulled the rock and just vac it out real fast them put rock back.

[bertoni]

Ammonia-consuming bacteria can respond rapidly to additional food. :)