This might get a little long but I thought I would make this thread to hopefully prevent something similar happening to someone else!!
I recently moved into a new house which had several rooms that needed to be painted. I have my spare bedroom in my house as the "fish room" where I (had) 13 clownfish, being that I just recently got into clownfish breeding. I had already painted 4 out of the 5 rooms in my house which every time I used the same procedures in isolating the room: closing both doors, turning off the air/heat in the house, draping a large towel over the tanks, and putting a towel under the small gap underneat the doors to help deal the room even better. Hang in there... This is where it gets crazy
The only change I made painting my last room (kitchen) and closest to the fish room was using shellac primer... For those that don't know very strong smelling fumes much more potent over reg primer. I finished painting the kitchen to the point where I thought it was dry... Being that it was 76 degrees that day and my house sits in direct sunlight the house started to get uncomfortable and I turned the air back on at about 4:30 pm. A few hours later I fed the fish and topped off water before lights went out and all seemed fine.
The nightmare starts... After waking up at 6:30 am going in to feed the fish all tanks were cloudy to the point of barely being able to see inside. Immediately noticing a dead fish I immediately ran out and got 5 gallons of freshly mixed salt water and begant to try and discover if any were still alive. 6 fish were still alive but barely! I scooped them all into a net and threw them in the bucket without any acclimation as I thought it was better than the horrible water they were currently in... Many many water changes later, several 10 gallon holding tanks, and a large container of carbon later I was only able to save 4 fish total.
I think what made things even worse was my protein skimmer drawing in air with "fumes" in it and mixing it into the water. All In all it was a rough and horribly depressing day. So what is my point?? When painting, spraying, bombing, cleaning or doing anything with a chemical in which you can smell take the extra time to properly protect your tank and if possible turn off filtration!
Please learn from me... THE END.
I recently moved into a new house which had several rooms that needed to be painted. I have my spare bedroom in my house as the "fish room" where I (had) 13 clownfish, being that I just recently got into clownfish breeding. I had already painted 4 out of the 5 rooms in my house which every time I used the same procedures in isolating the room: closing both doors, turning off the air/heat in the house, draping a large towel over the tanks, and putting a towel under the small gap underneat the doors to help deal the room even better. Hang in there... This is where it gets crazy
The only change I made painting my last room (kitchen) and closest to the fish room was using shellac primer... For those that don't know very strong smelling fumes much more potent over reg primer. I finished painting the kitchen to the point where I thought it was dry... Being that it was 76 degrees that day and my house sits in direct sunlight the house started to get uncomfortable and I turned the air back on at about 4:30 pm. A few hours later I fed the fish and topped off water before lights went out and all seemed fine.
The nightmare starts... After waking up at 6:30 am going in to feed the fish all tanks were cloudy to the point of barely being able to see inside. Immediately noticing a dead fish I immediately ran out and got 5 gallons of freshly mixed salt water and begant to try and discover if any were still alive. 6 fish were still alive but barely! I scooped them all into a net and threw them in the bucket without any acclimation as I thought it was better than the horrible water they were currently in... Many many water changes later, several 10 gallon holding tanks, and a large container of carbon later I was only able to save 4 fish total.
I think what made things even worse was my protein skimmer drawing in air with "fumes" in it and mixing it into the water. All In all it was a rough and horribly depressing day. So what is my point?? When painting, spraying, bombing, cleaning or doing anything with a chemical in which you can smell take the extra time to properly protect your tank and if possible turn off filtration!
Please learn from me... THE END.
...sorry to hear but now you know....:reading:
