I am a complete idiot........officially

So, Im officially and idiot.......
I have had a recent outbreak of cyano bacteria in my gravel on a side of my tank that didnt get much current until recently. I tried adjusting the flow, and lights but nothing really happened. I have been watching the quality of my water depreciate over the last few days and thought I would check out the collection of muck in my 4 stage reaction filter. I opened it up and it was pretty darn dirty. I pulled out the filer bag holding the ammonia rocks and carbon.

My carbon bag was still in its manufactured air tight plastic bag.... I forgot to remove the carbon filter bag out of the plastic one almost 6 months ago when I set up the tank.

Ive basically been running a nano tank without any carbon for 6 months. What trips me out is that my water was absolutely perfect this whole time up until a week ago. I wonder how it went for so long....

Reminder to everyone: Remove the filter cartidge from the plastic bag in order for it to even work.....

I feel like an idiot....

 

he he he nice :]

 

LMAO. Well, ummm. Hey at least it didnt cost you much besides some algae maybe. And you have all that nice fresh carbon ready to go

 

HA ha HA ha. You sound like me. I do that stuff all the time. You are lucky man! Heya, dont forget to dump out your old coffee grounds before you put in the fresh ones tomorrow eh? J/k

 

Thanks for the chuckle.. I think we all have a brain fart once in awhile.

 

Yeah seriously. I was so caught up in the moment of starting my tank off, that I kinda forgot one of the most important filtering elements. When i removed the carbon bag from its plastic outer, the carbon was dry as ever. Im suprised it didnt punture or wear out on a corner or something.

Well heres a question...The tank is extremely cloudy now...is the sudden carbon concentration going to harm the inhabitants of the tank since they've been raised for a while without it????

 

It shouldnt. Did you rinse it really well before adding it?

 

Yup and its kind of clearing up, But i feel that when i stirred up the crap in my filter media, it got puches into the tank somehow... Ill see how it does in a few hours...

 

:LolLolLol:thinking2 hope every thing is ok now m8

 

Update:

Water is clear now, but the protien skimmer acted up and is was blowing bubbles like crazy into the tank. Almost everything in the tank is covereed in bubbles...My hammer coral, torch coral, leather, gsp, and polyps are all stressed out and not really liking life right now.

I turned off the protien skimmmer. Plus, does it really do anything for a 20 gallon anyways? I have plenty of current and filtration. All it ever seems to do is blow bubbles into my rockwork and corals...