TOO MANY PELLETS

[QuickSwitchReef]

I was walking a by the tank at night and decided to shake a couple small sinking pellets into the tank, to maybe nice my new ghost ribbon eel to eat. I gave the container a couple shakes and the lid came off sending every pellet right in to the tank. With the wave makers running it sent pellets under all the rocks and coved the etnire sand bed. I instantly did a 30 gallon water charge and sucked as many of the pellets out with a shypon that I could. I don’t have the biggest of cuc and I’m worried the remaining pellets may cause an ammonia spike because of how small they are. Has anyone dealt with this before? If so what products or methods can I use to help keep the livestock from being affected?

Current nitrate after water change- 24ppm

 

[Waters]

I don't know that it will cause an ammonia spike as much as just raising phosphates. I would just keep an eye on your nutrients. By siphoning most of them out you should be fine.

 

[Mebbid]

Oh noooo

If you feel like you got most of them out, then you should be okay, but definitely monitor the ammonia for the next couple days, id personally test it twice a day just in case something does spike.

Have some water on hand for a water change. Some seachem prime wouldnt hurt to have on hand either, supposedly it detoxifies ammonia.

 

[Fish Fan]

Some seachem prime wouldnt hurt to have on hand either, supposedly it detoxifies ammonia.

"Supposedly" is the key word here

Prime and others like it have been tested and shown to be ineffective at binding or removing ammonia as claimed. Here's one thread about it:

A Deep Dive on Ammonia Neutralizer Chemistry - Prime, ClorAm-X, Rongalite and friends.

Summary (the whole thing in one paragraph) ClorAm-X is the best-performing of a barely effective product concept. Under the label usage ClorAm-X (but not Prime, or other common products) can be measured to lower the amount of total ammonia in a saltwater sample. This process is slow...

www.reef2reef.com

 

[DSC reef]

I wouldn't sweat the pellets very much. Im sure whatever is in the tank will just think ypu were having a generous night of feeding. Lol. I've done the same thing while in a rush and I didn't siphon. Fish and everyone else was just eating really good that night and no unusual side effects reported