Too Much Fish Food!!!?

Question

While I was at work today my best friend's lovely 3 year old son dumped nearly a whole bottle of tiny pellet community fish food into the tank....what should I do?? I don't want to mess up the biological system or pH level by cleaning the whole tank out, and then again I would rather my fish not die. HELP!

My tank is 29 gallons. and I have one measly 2 inch sucker fish.

Answer 1

Aw don't worry about it, that kind of thing happens :)

With a fish net, remove what you can. Then do a water change. You should be doing 30% water changes on a weekly basis, but you can do a 50% water change if you want to. The biological system, the benificial nitrifying bacteria, takes place mainly in your filter cartridge (this is why you should never replace it - just rinse if it gets gunky) and also in your gravel. However, you can vacuum your gravel to take out the majority of the gunk without any ill effects. You should be doing that a little bit every week, anyway.

If you notice the water getting cloudy, do small (10%) water changes every other day until it clears up.

I don't know how heavily stocked your tank is, but a school of corydoras catfish is great for cleaning up little messes :) They won't replace weekly water changes, but you won't have to worry too much about being militant about feeding. If you have 10 "empty" gallons in your tank, then go ahead and get a school of 5.

Answer 2

Turn off your pumps and siphon out as much debris as possible. Do a partial water change, pulling the water from the bottom of the tank to get as much of the gunk out as you can. Keep doing partial water changes over the next few days.
Also it would be a good idea to clean out at least part of your filtering media. I'm not sure what kind of filter you have so I can't be specific, but you generally shouldn't change all the filtering media at once as it will kill off too much of the beneficial bacteria that will be needed to help break down all the food.
Again, keep changing the water (properly treated and heated, etc.) and your fish shouldn't suffer too much stress.

Answer 3

Remove as much of the food as you can. Then do a partial water change (make sure the filter is working properly, at some point you may have to change out the filter media if it gets clogged). And do daily water testing to make sure any food that may have sunk somewhere out of sight is not raising the nitrite and ammonia levels (if those levels rise about zero, continue to do water changes until it goes back to a steady zero). Put a cover on the tank and ban all unsupervised (and I mean SUPERVISED) children.

Answer 4

Adding the food will do more to mess things up than changing the water. Get a cheap gravel vaccum, and use it to remove the pellets and 30% of the water. Do this every day for 5 days.

Don't do large water changes as that will cause large changes in chemistry, and temp.

Answer 5

Scoop out all the food that's still in tank. Then do a 25% water change. They should be OK. If water is cloudy and looks bad in a few days, do another water change.

Answer 6

Simple. Not sure the size of your tank, but what i try to do when i clean a bowl is utilize half of the old water and put half new water in. So move your fish clean out the bowl and rocks, and fish food pellets, and put your tank back to its original lustre. I supose you need a big enough container to store this old tank water while you clean the bowl. good luck.

Answer 7

Buy a sucker fish, one that cleans the tank, it should eat whatever scum the fish food leaves. And watch the tank closely you might need to do a total clean out if that doesn't work.

Answer 8

Scoop out any excess food and then do a 50% water change every day until the water isn't cloudy.

Answer 9

don;t worry....

simply remove the fish and change the water.....

goodluck... ;-}