HELP PLEASE!!! Child made soup of my tank!!
 

My daughter just poured a full bag of pellet food into my 10g LPS/softie tank. Everything is super ****ed. Rock and bottom are covered in pellets. 2 fish and shrimp as well. Have new salt water getting ready...advice appreciated!!!!

Pellet food should be siphoned out ASAP. Since it is a small tank, and pellets are lighter than rock and sand shouldn't be a big problem.

then replace the water with pre-mixed salt water.

test the water in the next day or so.

Ken

Try to net out lots of the solids if you can while you wait for the water to prep. Then try to syphon out as much of the crud as possible. Keep good filtration media in the filter... or add another form of mechanical filtration if you have another filter kicking around.

Good luck! Sorry to hear...

remove the pellets, do a water change, consider yourself lucky it was just pellet food and not baby powder and last but not least...CHILD PROOF EVERYTHING!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I can't see everything being so mad over pellet food, even the fish are acting strange... perhaps she put another unknown substance in as well...

My daughter is 2 and was born on a Friday the 13th...nuff said she is trouble!! hahaha. I usually keep a better eye on her around the tank however I also happen to have the flu so I'm really off today.

I cant definitely understand everything being so mad if the situation is as you described, "rock and bottom are covered in pellets". It can pollute the water surprisingly quickly!

Hope everything turns out ok! And 'get well soon' from the flu!

Chris

maxijet on a hose into a filter sock you hold over the tank. gives you as much time as you need to be thorough and siphon all of them out... then do a water change. good luck!

Thank you!

Terrific idea... If only I had the maxijet or the filter sock!! lol

Great idea I clean my sump like that :lol:

Looks like everyone has provided you with good advice.

This next bit is not to be taken seriously.
Everyone has overlooked the biggest point of all.
Have you considered adoption of the offending kid?

LMAO!!!

Fantastic idea!

I am going to employ this tactic to clean my sump.

HAHAHAHA!!! The thought had crossed my mind however she's just so damn cute...

Woke up to tank water still being extremely cloudy, not as brown, but I can't see much in there. How many water changes can a person safely do in a 24 period??

Yes, great tactic. If you have an AquaClear powerhead (quite similar to MaxiJet), there are cylindrical filter adapters designed as an accessory that would work much the same. They fit various sizes of the AquaClear powerheads with adapters provided. Would probably take longer than the maxijet with filter sock for major mess like yours, but similar result if you need some extra, short term mechanical filtration. You can just attach the filter to the powerhead, walk away & let it do it's thing for however long you need. Of course need to check on the filter media from time to time as well, depending on level of contamination.

Any amount of water change is safer than leaving ammonia in the tank or leaving decaying matter to rot.

If it's so cloudy, you should check your ammonia level and in case of any trace of it, dose your tank with Prime until you clear that off.

My cheap alternitive to that is just buy a bulk. Pack. Of aquaclear hob filter foam, cut ahole in it for the powerhead intake, and let. It clean away. Rinse and reset as needed. I have no other mechanical filtration on my tank so. I have used this for the occasional whoops..