Air freshener disaster

pantenepapi

New member
Ok so...

I had a really bad fish tank emergency and recently finished trying to save the remaining two fish (a small clownfish and a yellow tang) just now by placing them in a makeshift quarantine tank. I used a ten gallon rectangular tank and bought an inexpensive filter fitted with a marineland Carbon filter cartridge. I also added some fluval CYCLE.
On Saturday I left home to spend some time with my cousins and entrusted my pet fish to my parents. Little did I know my mother would place an air wic plug in freshener right above my tank that (like all of them do) started leaking. My idiot brother then took it out of the wall plug in to make room for his charger and placed the thing on top of the glass top. He left it there yesterday afternoon. That whole time up until earlier today it was leaking that foul oily substance onto the glass top which then leaked into my tank. (40 gallon rectangular)
I came home today at around 2:30 to find most of my fish dead and two of them swimming unnaturally upside down in separate corners. I couldn't figure out what was wrong until I lifted the glass top and caught the smell of strong air freshener. The tank reeked of the stuff. I was ****ed as hell. Anyway I fished out the dead fish and changed out about five gallons of water. I knew this wouldn't correct the problem so I went to the pet store and got a little tank and about thirty gallons of water since the lady there told me the only thing to do was to replace 100 percent of it and throw everything out. As in the sand and live rock. But here's the thing most troubling me. There was a lot of live rock in there and now all forty pounds of it smells of pure air freshener!!! My dads pretty angry about the whole thing because if it where up to him he wouldn't even let me do water changes on normal circumstances and now he thinks we might have to buy completely new live rock. What can I do to rid my rock of the chemicals?? Please help. It's currently sitting outside in a bucket. View attachment 452515View attachment 452516





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Quick update my yellow tang is doing a bit better. He's swimming on the glass floor right side up now but he won't eat. Can I gets some tips as to how to feed it without over polluting the tank? I literally just set it up yesterday.


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Quick update my yellow tang is doing a bit better. He's swimming on the glass floor right side up now but he won't eat. Can I gets some tips as to how to feed it without over polluting the tank? I literally just set it up yesterday.


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feed but use agressive water changes and something like AmQuel or Prime to help.

i would be doing at least 50% water changes per day.
 
If you can take out all your rocks and empty out the tank, do that. And rinse out the rocks in freshly made saltwater. After putting the rocks back in and filling up with new saltwater. I would also put in big bags of carbon and possibly Purigen to help eliminate the nasty chemicals. If you can't empty out the tank all at once, maybe do at least three 50% water changes.

After a few days, assess the situation by smelling the rocks and looking for signs of life. You may need to do another big water change and replace the carbon.

Kinda sounds like you don't have a skimmer because I bet a skimmer would be going nuts with all the chemicals in the tank. If it's not too far out of your budget, a hang-on-back Reef Octopus skimmer would help a lot not just for now, but for the long-term health of the tank.
 
Unless I'm reading this wrong the tang is already out of that tank and into a QT, and if so likely needs a bit of a rest before expecting it to eat even if it does well.

The DT obviously needs some water changes. Just confused myself on how the topic goes to what to do with the DT, when he already said he got the fish out. Other than wondering what a yellow tang was doing in a 40 gallon.
 
Sorry to hear your bad news. IMO don't feed the Tang for a few days. Keep the QT as clean as possible. I'm sure he can go a week without feeding. Good luck
 
Sorry to hear your bad news. IMO don't feed the Tang for a few days. Keep the QT as clean as possible. I'm sure he can go a week without feeding. Good luck



Thanks for the help. I won't be putting anymore food in the QT tank. As for the rock I've pretty much given up on trying to keep it "alive" I'm just trying to find a way to rid it of the chemicals


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