Emergency help please

[Aynesa]

So, yesterday while I was at my local reef club meeting my husband was 'watching' the kids. Apparently while he was 'watching', my 3 year old son decided to feed the fish. So he went into the kitchen which is normally blocked off by a baby gate, into a cabinet with a childlock on it, got out a HUGE doublesized can of formula one fish food, moved his stepstool over by the tank which is in the living room and visible from anywhere in the office, living room, kitchen, and a good chunk of the hallway, stood on it, opened the top of the can and dumped the WHOLE thing in the tank, spilling a good chunk on the carpet and top of the tank, but still, most went in.

Despite the tornado of fish food that had to swarm the tank visibly and obviously for at least 20 minutes, if not more, my darling husband 'didn't notice'. I come home a couple of hours later and my tankwater is the color of the fish food--bright orange red. I started looking at it to try to figure out what was wrong, and had it within 5 minutes. I did a 50-60% water change, and did my best to vaccuum the bottom, but by the time I got home most of the food had dissolved, meaning getting it out was nearly impossible. I cranked my skimmer up and it pulled off 2.5 gallons of skimmate into a 5 gallon bucket within a few hours. It's still pulling some of it off, but my coral look like they're melting.

Results from quick testing:

Ammonia .25-.5 (Hard to tell the color, looks somewhere in between)
Nitrate 15ppm (After the water change)
Salinity 1.025
Phosphate 0-.25, can't really tell what.

One of my monti caps is clearly already dead and bleached white. My purple lobe brain looks REALLY bad too. Suggestions would be most welcome. This is easter sunday, so unfortunately most of my LFS's are closed.

 

[Sk8r]

If you can get some Amquel, do. Also activated carbon: if you don't have a carbon bag, use a ladies' knee-high stocking, knotted.
Some Phosban in a sock wouldn't hurt: fish food is bad about that.

Put a good particulate filter on the water, and prepare some new salt water asap in an old salt bucket, Rubbermaid Brute trashcan or Lowe's polystyrene 5g paint bucket. Move any moveable corals into that if you cannot tame this ammonia/nitrate/phosphate. New salt water is a lot better than polluted salt water. Just be sure all the crystals are dissolved.

Both Amquel and carbon can remove Ammonia---Amquel instantly, carbon over hours: but carbon, you may know, releases what it absorbed once it saturates, so every time the ammonia significantly drops, change out the carbon, even if it's just a few hours.


it's always on holidays, isn't it?

keep us posted, and test often.

 

[tkeracer619]

If you cannot find RO use tap water and some declorinator (you can get at a box store). Do several large water changes. That is the only thing that will get the ammonia down within reason. Run carbon and keep the skimmer going full blast.

Might try this post in your local club forum as well. Someone might have a large vat of pre mixed saltwater.

Sorry for your losses.

 

[LauraCline]

So sorry to hear of your troubles, especially on Easter. Good advice above, I would also give the hubby a good swift kick in the rear and let him know he will be paying to replace what was lost, lol. You might also talk the little one into only feeding the fish when Mommy is right there with him.

 

[LoneRegister]

carbon. And put in several bags of it.

continue to do water changes over the next few days. Perhaps 20% each 36 hours from now on.

Keep the carbon fresh. It may clog up rapidly so you may need to change it more often than you think.

No harm in changing it every 24 hours - to make sure it's filtering.

Change your filter bag every 12 hours with a clean one. That should help with particulate matter.

Hubby not at fault - he's obviously not a fish keeper - just enjoys the tank and didn't know enough to peek in on it or watch it. He probably figured it was just something normal like an algea bloom or something and didn't really think about.

And more likely - you've kept the tank so well over the years - he just was never expecting something to go wrong - so wasn't looking for anything.

Hope this helps.

 

[LoneRegister]

Keep us posted please!

 

[Aynesa]

I want to thank you all for your good advice. I'm sorry I wasn't here to answer every post. Believe me, I was reading them. Hard to type when you're wet to your elbows in saltwater though

I'm very pleased to report that my ammonia is now down to 0, and my phosphates are undetectable again. I did a massive waterchange, and also was given a bottle of fresh nitrifying bacteria as well as a chemical that removed phosphate from the system. PhosX I think it was called? Big black bottle... he didn't give me the bottle though so I'm working off memory with the name. My skimmer has been working overtime, but it was up to the challenge, thank goodness. I use an external resavoir with a piece of 1/4 inch tubing-- I emptied last night and the 5 gallon bucket under it is already half full again.

I had hooked up a denitrifier right before this happened, and thank goodness for that, because it's kept my nitrates under control and reasonable. It was a used unit, so it didn't have to cycle, it was precycled, and the water coming out of it has been reading at 0 nitrates since right before this happened. In the display, my nitrates are now reading at about 10 ppm and falling.

It's been a trying weekend. Happy Easter (Yea right)