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View Full Version : Woke up on the wrong side of the reef


DLANDINO
05/06/2016, 04:32 AM
Yesterday I woke up a bit bleary eyed. Before heading to the shower I thought to feed my one lone clown fish in my 8 gallon cube. I grabbed the food from the feel supply drawer and proceeded to shake via the included shaker top, the 4-5 pellets that the clown would generally consume.

Unfortunately I mistook my kids goldfish food for the marine food and dumped the entire contents of a medium can into the tank.

I scrambled over the next 30-40 min to net skim as much as humanly possible out of the tank. Then, frustrated, I went to work.

Came home at 1pm early to grab my son for a dr's apt. Glanced in the tank and found it a bit cloudy looking but generally ok. I knew I had to do a massive weather change that night to be certain that I didnt have a long term problem or worse.


Came home from the dr's apt one hour later and the entire house stunk and the tank looked 10 times worse than the prior hour! That fast.... I did the water change of 4.5 gallons, all little over 50%, changed my carbon adding a fresh 1.5 cups and swapped out the floss to catch any remaining particles.

The smell was immediately quelled but the water still cloudy.

I killed the light schedule immediately upon making the mistake yesterday so there has not been a photo period yet. I figured that this would likely help the matter.

Today I woke up and the muddy murky look was replaced by a whitish bacterial cloud look as seen in the pic below. Again, lights on for the camera only and then off again.

Hopefully when I get home tonight it will look markedly better than this morning. I am thinking one more 50% WC tomorrow should get me in the clear.

Thought I would share with the group my story. Even after 10 years in the hobby one can still make a rookie mistake :)

Ps I wrote this on my iPhone via tappatalk don't mark me down for grammatical errors please

http://uploads.tapatalk-cdn.com/20160506/b793de8481d9d3fccd2a26282523aa58.jpghttp://uploads.tapatalk-cdn.com/20160506/778e79541e57342516377a4242f0be24.jpghttp://uploads.tapatalk-cdn.com/20160506/1f96200ea1cf81a027b9d10d803ffbfa.jpg


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

Tweaked
05/06/2016, 05:01 AM
I still say it looks like a bowl of fruity pebbles was dumped in.

Ocean envy
05/06/2016, 07:04 AM
Well things happen.

I think your best course of action is to take your cue from those with long term success with small nano/pico tanks. Key is that they will do 90 to 100% water changes on occasion, while changing the filter media and even doing a bit of a rinse with the new water to get out as much decaying material as possible. They credit this with being able to keep tiny tanks long term. I think your situation warrants a similar treatment.

Good luck.

JerSaint
05/06/2016, 07:19 AM
Sorry to hear about this Dave! Best of luck and I hope it continues to bounce back quickly!

DLANDINO
05/06/2016, 07:48 AM
I still say it looks like a bowl of fruity pebbles was dumped in.

makes me hungry

DLANDINO
05/06/2016, 07:48 AM
Sorry to hear about this Dave! Best of luck and I hope it continues to bounce back quickly!

thanks...live and learn lol

DLANDINO
05/06/2016, 07:49 AM
Well things happen.

I think your best course of action is to take your cue from those with long term success with small nano/pico tanks. Key is that they will do 90 to 100% water changes on occasion, while changing the filter media and even doing a bit of a rinse with the new water to get out as much decaying material as possible. They credit this with being able to keep tiny tanks long term. I think your situation warrants a similar treatment.

Good luck.
Thank you !

GobyWanKenobie
05/06/2016, 09:57 AM
Well things happen.

I think your best course of action is to take your cue from those with long term success with small nano/pico tanks. Key is that they will do 90 to 100% water changes on occasion, while changing the filter media and even doing a bit of a rinse with the new water to get out as much decaying material as possible. They credit this with being able to keep tiny tanks long term. I think your situation warrants a similar treatment.

Good luck.

I'm not sure where you heard this, but as a keeper of nano/pico tanks for 7+ years, I would never change more than 10%-15% at one time. With such a small volume of water, everything you do is a major change in parameters. Even with my larger tanks, I would never do more than 20% at one time. Since this is an emergency situation, I would risk 50%, but only after matching the alk and ca parameters. Good luck.