[MStiers]

My kids decided that it was time to feed the fish so they proceeded to dump a full container of flakes in and an old container of tubifex worms. Mind you, this is a small 29 gallon tank. My wife caught it a few minutes after it happened and called me. I rushed home and immediately began syphoning the substrate and moving live rock. I then cleaned the filter with siphoned tank water as not to disturb the beneficial bacteria anymore than it already was. I did a 50% water change with the Ocean/RO water from the LFS. I went to bed and woke the next day to a dead chocolate chip starfish, dead damsel and 1 dead hermit. I have 2 living turbo snails and 2 living hermits.

The tanked looked like milk. My LR even seems to be dying back. What a mess. This was two days ago. I haven;t even bothered to check my parameters as it's obvious that they will be off the charts and that the tank is going through another cycle. Has this ever happened to anyone before? Is there anything to do? How much time am I looking at for recovery? I am so down because of this. I was just starting to see good progress with the tank after almost a year.

 

[cruzeoc]

little sods i hope you belted the little buggers really hard.

right make it a must 2 do water changes everyday not to much about 25% for 3 days then leave it to settle for about a week check the levels get the skimmer going and a uv filter you need to kill as much crud as possible your hermits and snails are probably loving it so bulk up on the clean up crew to remove as much food as possible then sit and wait do your checks then and only then.............divorce the wife and tell her to take the kids only then will you tank b safe

 

[sKuz]

sorry to hear about that. I hope you have no more fatalities. I also hope that you sit your kids down and tell them they cant do that anymore.

Hhehehe actually i did the exact same thing to my parents fish tank when i was really really young. They didnt yell at me, i just remember feeling bad cuz my parents flushed them down the toilet. so i didnt do it again.

 

[pamonster]

dang, thats harsh
I hope the remaining survivors make it

 

[MStiers]

The tank is clearing up very quickly and the inverts are very active again. I have been removing 5 gallons each day and replacing it with the Natural Ocean Nurti Balance water from the LFS. This stuff is working wonders. Yes, I sat the kids down and explained that they can't touch the fish tanks. They know that as they have never messed with any of my tanks before. I have kept P's up to 12.5" in the past and thank God they never toyed with those. I plan to test the parameters tomorrow in hope that things are restoring a bit.

 

[MStiers]

The tank has recovered and is flourishing with some changes I have made. After the above mess, I began using RO water from my local grocery store, dripping limewater as top off for evaporated water replacement, dosing with Reef Vital DNA each day, added a new power head, added a few snails, a pair of coral hermits and a Green Clown Goby. I am placing an order with Indo Pacific Sea Farms ( www.IPSF.com ) for their Mix N Match 9 for 99.95 shipped. My next investment is upgrading my lighting. Does anyone have any inexpensive solutions for my 29gal?

I had a small bout with cyno/ brown algea, but dripping Limewater, brushing it off with a tooth brush from the LR, and using a turkey baster to suck it up helped to get rid of the problem.

I have alot of new pink and purple coraline growth on the LR.