My son dumped half a bottle of flake food into the tank

[dmort]

Hi all, I'm about three days into the cycle on a 29 gallon aquarium. I'm feeding the cycle with flake food. All was going well - had some amomnia build up occuring - and we went to add to a little flake food. When it was my son's turn, he dumped in a ton! I was able to scoop out a lot of it right away, but now the water is cloudy, blah blah blah.

What do I do? There isn't anything living in there besides four small pieces of live rock (and a whole bunch of dry rock, live sand, and whatever bacteria have grown).

I have an aquaclear filter on there, just running the sponge to catch junk. I can run to the store and buy a bunch of carbon and run that... I also have a bottle of biospira.

So what should I do? Let it be? Add stuff? Etc.

Thanks!

(I have a new tank thread going in the new to the forum section - I'm also going to post this there)

 

[saltyphish]

I would let it be the bacteria will take care of it. Depending on how much is still in there your cycle time may increase.

 

[SeahorseKeeper]

I would just let it be. At this point, there is no livestock that could be harmed due to an ammonia spike. On the plus side, you will be encouraging the growth of nitrifying bacteria.

 

[scruggyj]

Flake food most likely have lots of phosphates. You may want to siphon a lot of it out. Could lead to algea issues down the road.

 

[vic67]

+1 on just letting the food break down in the tank.

 

[dmort]

I had read that one of the problems with using flake food is the phospates. I think I got a ton of it out when I scooped. I have enough RODI on hand that I could do about a 4-5 gallon water change. I don't want to mess up the cycle though.

Also, at this point, whatever is left in there has mostly broken down - it has been about an hour. I'm not sure there are really substantial chunks left.

Yea or Nay on water change?

 

[Dalmatia]

I would let it be the bacteria will take care of it. Depending on how much is still in there your cycle time may increase.

Yaaa agreed
Don't worry about it, old days people use their own pee to give some ammonia!!! They still sell it but it's just called "ammonia" lol
Flakes is a joke for that
If anything it will bring up your phosphates which is not so good. But your cycling so don't worry too much

 

[fishroomlady]

I vote no water change. Not often you hear that in this hobby

 

[Dalmatia]

I vote no water change. Not often you hear that in this hobby

Agreed

 

[mike007]

I would just let it be. At this point, there is no livestock that could be harmed due to an ammonia spike. On the plus side, you will be encouraging the growth of nitrifying bacteria.

+1 you will be fine no worries.

 

[Dalmatia]

+1 you will be fine no worries.

Me too, thumbs up

 

[dmort]

Yeah, good. I might add the carbon if it still looks really cloudy tomorrow evening. I'm also considering picking up some chaeto, and while the aquarium cycles, growing it in a media bag. I'm hoping it might pick up some phosphate? Or I could run chemipure elite in the filter and see how that goes.

 

[Dalmatia]

I've always used an air stone while cycling. Don't know why but I've gotten better results

 

[zwulfke]

use some shrimp from the market that will cycle and the shrimp in a few days will smell bad lol

 

[NobleSun27]

Yeah I would add that chaeto and ride it out and even if you did a water change I don't think it would add much time (for the cycle) or reduce the bacteria very much just reduce the amount of total phosphates ending up in the tank. Good luck

 

[dmort]

The tank stinks right now. I'm running a fan over it to try to increase gas exchange and I moved my circulation pump so it is creating a lot of ripples along the surface.

I'll have to go to my LFS tomorrow and see if they sell chaeto. If I have to order it I think it will take too long.

 

[SeahorseKeeper]

Where are you located?

 

[dmort]

I live in the Bronx - Riverdale. I go to Central Aquatics on Tuckahoe rd...

 

[dmort]

Howdy - so it smelled pretty bad. Bad enough that I decided I needed to do something about it. I was also concerned about too much phospate building up and the possible need to vacuum under the rock to clear debris. So I kind of took the advice you guys gave and I kind of didn't. (-: I went to petco and bought one of those 5 gallon jugs of natural seawater. I also went and got a bunch of buckets (which I needed anyways. I took the rock out, put them in the buckets, and then siphoned out enough water to cover the rocks. Then, I vacuumed the sand, and pulled out a bit of sand too. not much. Then, I added the 5 gallon container of seawater into the tank, added the rock back into the tank, and topped it off with the remaining rock. The goal here was to get some of the junk out and replace it with some non-contaminated water without disrupting too much of the cycle. I figured that if I still got a decent ammonia reading (yesterday evening's was off the charts) I hadn't messed up too much. Well, I just did the reading and I still have a ton of amonia in the tank (2mg/L of NH3+NH4 which according to my red sea test kit indicates a level of .2mg/L of NH3 - the highest on the chart) so it seems like my plan worked.

I also picked up some activated carbon which I am running in my HOB filter. I'm going to run it for a few days and see how the clarity and smell improves. As of right now, it has been about a half an hour and it is already starting to clear and it doesn't smell nearly as bad!

I read a tip on another forum regarding the "kid dumping fish food in the tank issue." The suggestion was, buy a tiny plastic bottle, for example the type sold at hiking stores, and put a small amount of food in it - the right amount for 1 feeding (if you use flakes at all that is....) The container is the kid's container and if he/she ever dumps it without you knowing, there isn't much to do damage.

Thanks for the support, I'll post what happens in a few days if anyone cares.

 

[fishroomlady]

glad it turned out well for you! Of course we care what happens! keep posting!