Puffer crisis, please help!

[rowdy]

okay. so I was on my way back home from an out of town business trip today, my wife called and said that our 3 year old daughter apparently dumped all sorts of stuff into our tank. She wasn't paying attention to her when it happened so she is not even sure what our daughter put in there.

After getting this call, it took me another 4 hours to get home. When I got home, It was apparent that there were at least 10-15 algae tablets put in there, all swollen up and disintegrating about half of our can of flakes were missing, and a few krill. The tank houses a green spotted puffer and two mollies. The water was so cloudy You literally couldn't see anything in the tank at all.

I immediately did a 50% water change and removed all of the decor. I sort of stirred the substrate and vacuumed as much of the crud out as I could. the water looks a whole lot better now, but still horrible.

Additionally, she got into my API test kit, and broke all of the glass test tubes. Thank god she didn't get into the chemicals. So I am unable to test the parameters of the water aside from salinity, which is the same as it previously was.

Should I be freaking out as bad as I am right now? Is this going to have detrimental effects on my tank? Or should everything be okay so long as I keep doing water changes like a mad man over the next few days. I really hope the ridiculous amount of algae tablets and fish flakes she put into the tank doesn't throw all of my parameters off too bad.

[hadla]

Geez... Hope the tank will be ok... I'd move everything out of her reach or put a lock on a cabinet door and store it there... :/ sorry I can't help more.

Forgot to ask... Is the puff ok?

[scpion]

See PP's signature. U can change the water however often u wish. Just make sure the salinity and temp is the same. If they are not used to large volume change, do a few 50%-70%. imo dun have to wait a few days in between. I usually do at least 90% on my puffer tank with no ill effect. Mine's easier though as they are all FW and my climate stays the same throughout so I dun have to worry about the temp.

[Welch4]

Try to vac up any left over food. And keep doing wcs.

[Welch4]

P.S. would be a good idea to rinse off any prefliters and or first stage media in your filter.

[rowdy]

Okay. I will clean my filter media and just keep doing 50% water changes once or twice a day until it is good again. I am going to have to buy a new test kit today so I can test my parameters. I imagine the nitrates have sky rocketed by now : /

In regards to rinsing my filter media, I have a biocube 29 using stock filtration. So, sponge filter, carbon filter, then bio balls, then another sponge filter. Do I need to only clean the first sponge and carbon filter? Also my substrate is sand and it looks disgusting now. I know you are not supposed to mess with it because of the bacteria that lives in there, but can I change out the sand with fresh sand? It is all brown and gross now and I want my white sand back. I am definitely going to have to devise a way to lock the cabinet and the lid of the tank, I work too hard and put too much money into this tank for my kid to come trumping along and destroy it all in the flick of a wrist.

[Welch4]

Just skim off the first layer if you can and just the sponge should be fine

[rowdy]

Okay well after my 2nd 50% water change and vacuuming the sand it looks a lot better. The water and sand have returned to how it was before the incident, visually that is.

I got a new test kit yesterday and tested my parameters. As I suspected everything is out of whack now. pH is down to 7.8 from 8.2, the ammonia appeared to be up to 1.0 ppm, Nitrite is up to 0.50, and nitrates are still down around 5.0 ppm. Should I pour a bottle of bio spira in the tank? I am freaked out and want to get the ammonia and nitrite back to 0 asap.

[Welch4]

A bottle of biospira couldnt hurt but add it to the filter. Depending on if you are using prime for a declor some of that ammonia could be a false positive but I doubt the full 1 pp,

[rowdy]

I am certain that the ammonia and nitrite are due to the amount of crap my kid put into the tank. I have seen some disgusting fish tanks before, but this took the cake by far. It was so bad you would have had to see it to believe it. The tank quite literally looked like it was full of milk.

I do not use prime in my water. However, I was reading online that adding prime and stress coat to the tank can help the fish get by until the ammonia and nitrite get back down to 0. Is this true? And if it is, are there any ill effects that may occur from doing this?

[Welch4]

No negative effects. Stress coat i just helps with slime coat and od'ing prime will dextoxify nitrite i dont believe anything for ammonia.

[Pufferpunk]

Stresscoat is something I wouldn't bother with. Keep with daily WC & Prime, until the tank remains at 0 amm/nitrite. If you add Biospira, you'll have to wait 48 hours to do a WC. Up to you.