I came home from work today and went upstairs to look at my tank. The lights were still off so I couldn't get a good look at it, but I noticed more sound than usual coming from the sump, and when I checked it out my skimmer was overflowing like crazy. I turned the tank's light on, and noticed that the color of the water seemed a little green, so I knew something must be wrong. That's when I looked back at my sump and saw a horrifying sight...
An jar of formula two garlic fish flakes (which was nearly full when I left for work) floating in the sump. I picked up the jar and my worst fears were confirmed...it was empty. My 3 year old daughter had emptied it into the sump earlier in the day while I was at work. I generally have the door child-proofed, but for the last week or so it was not.
My first reaction was to do a 50% water change and let the skimmer continue doing its work. I didn't have any saltwater prepared, so I called Jim @ Global Leader Aquatics (the new fish store in Humble) and he was more than willing to help. He had plenty of mixed saltwater to offer me, but first he tried to gather more info from me to see what the best solution would be. After talking with him, he was worried that if I simply did a large water change the food would gradually decompose and probably cause an ammonia spike that could kill my tank. I didn't see any flakes in the water, and I figured that they had all dissolved which was why my water was green and the skimmer was going crazy. I basically had 2 choices, do the water change and hope for the best, or take the whole tank down and move all the corals and fish to my frag tank, and the rocks to the QT tank I am in the process of setting up. That seemed like a hassle, but Jim convinced me it was the safest thing to do.
Anyway, he was absolutely right. After moving everything from my main tank into my frag tank and QT tank, I then decided to move the chaeto and rock rubble from the main tank's sump into my frag tank's sump. when I started messing with the sump I realized that all of the flake food had simply made it's way down to the bottom of the refugium portion of my sump.....there is literally a whole bed of fish food down there that I didn't realize was there (I only run the lights on my fuge at night, so I couldn't see it during the day). If I would have left everything in my tank I'm positive it would have crashed within a few days and I would have lost everything, so THANKS FOR THE GREAT ADVICE JIM!
Everything is doing fine in the frag tank (it is extremely full). I had actually just ordered a custom tank to go in my wall in my office, and it's going to be ready this weekend, so I have decided not to set my existing tank up again. I am just going to sell it and move everything into my new setup once it's up and running. I avoided a huge disaster thanks to good advice from a great LFS.
By the way, yes, my daughter is still alive. She's way too cute to strangle...
However, I did make every attempt to make her feel as guilty as possible by telling her she made the fish sick. She loves the fish...she's the only one of my 3 kids who does, so hopefully that will deter her from doing anything like this again. It's my fault anyways, I should have had it childproofed.
Anyway, if anyone is looking for a beautiful 45G setup I'll be posting it the BST forum shortly.
What a great hobby! :banghead2:
An jar of formula two garlic fish flakes (which was nearly full when I left for work) floating in the sump. I picked up the jar and my worst fears were confirmed...it was empty. My 3 year old daughter had emptied it into the sump earlier in the day while I was at work. I generally have the door child-proofed, but for the last week or so it was not.
My first reaction was to do a 50% water change and let the skimmer continue doing its work. I didn't have any saltwater prepared, so I called Jim @ Global Leader Aquatics (the new fish store in Humble) and he was more than willing to help. He had plenty of mixed saltwater to offer me, but first he tried to gather more info from me to see what the best solution would be. After talking with him, he was worried that if I simply did a large water change the food would gradually decompose and probably cause an ammonia spike that could kill my tank. I didn't see any flakes in the water, and I figured that they had all dissolved which was why my water was green and the skimmer was going crazy. I basically had 2 choices, do the water change and hope for the best, or take the whole tank down and move all the corals and fish to my frag tank, and the rocks to the QT tank I am in the process of setting up. That seemed like a hassle, but Jim convinced me it was the safest thing to do.
Anyway, he was absolutely right. After moving everything from my main tank into my frag tank and QT tank, I then decided to move the chaeto and rock rubble from the main tank's sump into my frag tank's sump. when I started messing with the sump I realized that all of the flake food had simply made it's way down to the bottom of the refugium portion of my sump.....there is literally a whole bed of fish food down there that I didn't realize was there (I only run the lights on my fuge at night, so I couldn't see it during the day). If I would have left everything in my tank I'm positive it would have crashed within a few days and I would have lost everything, so THANKS FOR THE GREAT ADVICE JIM!
Everything is doing fine in the frag tank (it is extremely full). I had actually just ordered a custom tank to go in my wall in my office, and it's going to be ready this weekend, so I have decided not to set my existing tank up again. I am just going to sell it and move everything into my new setup once it's up and running. I avoided a huge disaster thanks to good advice from a great LFS.
By the way, yes, my daughter is still alive. She's way too cute to strangle...
However, I did make every attempt to make her feel as guilty as possible by telling her she made the fish sick. She loves the fish...she's the only one of my 3 kids who does, so hopefully that will deter her from doing anything like this again. It's my fault anyways, I should have had it childproofed. Anyway, if anyone is looking for a beautiful 45G setup I'll be posting it the BST forum shortly.
What a great hobby! :banghead2:
