Whoops! Spilled (a lot) of fish food in my tank. Now what?

[RussC]

Good news is, its a new tank so not much bioload, only two fish. So parameters were all in line and running like a champ. Then I had to go and pop open my auto fish feeder and spilled about an ounce glass of Neptune fish pellets in my tank. What can I expect? What should I do?

Bad news is neither of my fish-cardinal or clown- like these pellets.

I noticed my water is a bit cloudy. Expected. I was able to scoop a decent amount out with a net. But not near enough. I ran out and grabbed the only two hermit crabs I could find at my LFS(s) (they aren't stocking because they aren't sure what Hurricane IRMA is up to). I haven't checked ammonia level, gonna do it this afternoon. Expect it to be up.

What about a water change?

Meanwhile, I'm still having to feed my two fish. And right now the only thing they seem to be eating is Mysis. Can't get them to take flake yet. Clown is being very particular.

 

[der_wille_zur_macht]

Manually remove what you can, do a few large water changes, monitor nutrients. Rinse and repeat until nutrients are in line with your targets.

Don't try to solve this with cleanup crew. Hermits will only eat it and poo it back out. You need nutrient export, not nutrient processing. Keep some Prime on hand and dose if you can't control ammonia via water changes, it would be a shame to harm the fish.

 

[Cymonous]

If you can't scoop it out, use a turkey baster to suck them out. You want to get that food out or it will cause an ammonia spike, high nutrient issues, etc. I would also do a 20% water change since the water is already getting cloudy.

 

[Valentini89]

+1 on the above posts, your first move should have been to do a water change and siphon the food out. I spilled a ton of food into my tank once by setting my auto feeder too high accidentally and my first thought was "water change" .. tank looked normal about 10 minutes later.

 

[RussC]

Working on water change preparations now.