Roommate overfed the fish in my tank...need help.

Hey everyone. Got a problem I need some quick help with. Was out for a week and in the middle of it I called and asked my roommate to feed my fish. I walked him through it asking him to put a "small pinch" of flakes in the tank. Came back and found the tank covered in red/brown algae. Apparently he put a weeks worth of food in one sitting and a "pinch" meant something completely different to him.. No fish died and I put some red slime algae medication in to help with the algae bloom. I'm in the process of doing close to a 50% water change over time. Bottom line I should have asked only a trusted person that knows how...lesson learned.

Wondering if I am doing the right things and if there is anything else I should be doing? How long will it take the red slime to get off the rocks?

Thanks for your help.
Chris

 

i would continue doing water changes. maybe 10-15% every 3-4 days. that will keep your nitrates down hopefully. maybe run some carbon just to clean things up a bit.

 

well maybe a 50% water change might be a little drastic..
check your water parameters and if they seem really out of whack then do.
if they are ok then just do a 25% today and another 25% in 2-3 days and so forth until your problem is solved. Im guessing the 50% water change wont do harm but i think 25 25 is a bit better.

lets see what the others say

 

hrmm did you do a full panel test of your water to see where you're at?

we'll need more information....

1) Current water test results (temp, ph, salinity you keep your stuff at, no2, no3, alk, and because you're discussing algae possibly a PO4 test) ALways good to post this when looking for help

2) What kind of filtration methods do you use?

3) Whens your routine water changes done?

You said you're doing a 50% water change "over-time"... can you provide more detail on this? If you have a serious water chemistry issue you can do the 50% water change "NOW" instead of "over-time".

Cant help without knowing more details. Im guessing the red slime is Cyano? Does it look like this:



Do you have corals in the tank? If not you can help rid the algae bloom with reduction of your photo period.

Im going to guess that the increased food kicked up the phosphate level. The uneaten food is decaying and going to be a nitrate factory, hence why I asked for the water chem results. If the nitrates out of control you'll have to siphon up the uneaten food and do water changes to help export the nitrate, phosphates, and replenish the good elements.

 

I read these sort of things sometimes... folks recommend all these ways of cleaning it... but that's now how I see it.

Say your tank is doing peachy. 0 (or low) nitrates, no algae, etc. Then suddenly you get an algae bloom for a known reason (spilled food, bad lights, whatever) and you correct the reason (replace bulbs, move the jar of food, whatever).

So now you have an algae bloom, but the problem is fixed. What's next?

Lots of folks will advise water changes or this and that... IMO, I'd just leave it be. Yes you'll have algae, but that algae is sucking up all the nutrients from the spilled food (or giant pinch, whatever). Once it's sucked up, barring any other problems, the algae will then die off on its own.



Here a while back I pulled out about half of my live rock. A lot of this majorly disturbed the substrate and I ended up getting a really big GHA bloom. I added some snails because I lost some over the past year but didn't do anything else. No water changes, nothing.

About 2.5 months later, the algae had soaked up all the muck, dyed off and the last little bits of it were floating around in the water column waiting to be skimmed out...


If your tank is pretty stable, and you know this is the source, make sure your filtration is working and your CuC is adequate and just wait it out. It should be able to self-heal.

You could do the 50% WC and all that, but the nitrates aren't in the water column (well, ya know, they're not coming from there), they are in the food that's rotting that's all up in your rock work.

 

Sounds good. I'll split up the water changes...thanks! There is still a lot of waste within the gravel at the bottom of the tank. What's the best way to get rid of that. Would stirring it up so it goes through the filter work best? Can't really get to it to use a gravel type suction device. Will it just dissolve eventually?

Thanks again

 

Solid advise. Thanks so much!!!

 

The water changes are definitely the way to go. In the future its helpful to be able to have a nice reliable high end auto feeder, and a good clean up crew.

A helpful method for having a friend or buddy or neighbor etc to feed your fish is: go to your local dollar store or cvs, ask for a weekly pill organizer or if you know where to find one grab and buy it, if you feed daily (most tanks dont need it) fill each little compartment on the pill organizer with the amount of food you normally feed your tank, if you feed every other day or some other way only fill those days, then important, HIDE YOUR FOOD. This will prevent over feeding and allow the lay person to keep track of whether or not they fed your tank.