My 3 year old thought he was helping and dumped an entire can of flakes into my freshwater fish tank. If it helps I have 3 neon tetras, 3 diamond tetras, 1 swordtail, and 1 betta.
2007-03-27 10:24:16 · 7 answers · asked by DeAnna 5 in Pets ➔ Fish
Been there done that. I have two kids myself and when young they did exactly that several times. I feel your pain lol.
The best thing to use is a little kitchen strainer that's made from fine wire mesh and scoop out as much as possible. You filter will remove much more and especially if you stir the ecess up fom the bottom every 15-20 minutes. Then you can change the filter bag or wash it off. This will remove the majority of it then you can turn off the filter and allow the rest to settle to the bottom where you can vacuum it up without removing more than about 25% orf the water. Even that could be strained and returned to the tank, but a water change 10-12 hours after it happened would be a good idea anyway as any you miss will foul the water a bit by then. Best of luck tackling the project.
By the way, I started having mine place a bit of food in the lid of the jar and dumping that in. It seemed to work fairly well. They would even bring me the lid to see that they weren't feeding too much or too little. 8-10 years later they still feed the fish that way, but without having to check with me first.
MM
2007-03-27 10:35:37 · answer #1 · answered by magicman116 7 · 5⤊ 0⤋
If it has sunk to the bottom, you can vacuum most of it out but not with the normal vacuum. Once you get the flow started, remove the vacuum part so that it is only the hose. You'll be amazed at how much suction you get. Don't get it too close to the sand or gravel (or fish) though or it will suck it up too. It will only take a short time to get it out and you won't remove a lot of water either. I removed all the sand from one of my takes like this.
2007-03-27 17:48:56 · answer #2 · answered by rdd1952 3 · 0⤊ 0⤋
Use a fish net to get it all off of the top and then swirl it around a little bit to get the stuff off of the bottom. They filter will suck some of it up. It'd suggest keep trying to use the fish net. That's what I've had to do. You may want to do about 25% water change anyway. Good luck
{K}itty
2007-03-27 19:25:49 · answer #3 · answered by Kitty 2 · 1⤊ 0⤋
Well, it's been a while now, I'd guess, so the flakes have probably dissolved or turned to mush. But you have to clean the tank. Vacuum it all out. You don't say how big your tank is, but I'd guess a decent chunk of the water will be gone.
An idea for the future would be to get a Plecostomus or 2. They'd eat a TON of it...but they grow really big (mine's over 10")
2007-03-27 17:35:13 · answer #4 · answered by Left Bank Hook 4 · 0⤊ 3⤋
take a net to the top of the net and scoop all the food out. i had to much food in my goldfish tank the other day and this worked.
2007-03-27 21:26:01 · answer #5 · answered by skigrrrrl 3 · 0⤊ 0⤋
There really is no solution but a water change.
2007-03-27 17:32:13 · answer #6 · answered by Anonymous · 1⤊ 0⤋
You can't, do the water change or be prepared to get all new fish!!
2007-03-27 17:28:20 · answer #7 · answered by Anonymous · 1⤊ 1⤋