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Before I left home yesterday morning, I fed my fish and told my husband not to mess with the tank, that I would feed them when I got home. My tank was perfect, everything was fine. I get home 12 hours later and my husband is feeding the fish for the 4th time and he's complaining that they aren't eating, the tank is cloudy and it smells like someone relieved themselves in it. So I get very upset and I do a 75% water change, I changed the filter, and I added some water treatments. This morning, my ammonia is .25ppm but it smells like pee. My Nitrates are at 40ppm and my nitrites are at 1ppm. Even with too much food, how could he completely destroy my tank in one day and how do I fix it? I'm afraid if I do another 75% change this morning it would be too much and might shock them. The fish don't seem to mind all that much, and they're acting normal, but I wouldn't want to live in that.

Hi,
The tank is cycling again because of the extra ammonia
as the bacteria "ramp up" to the new level.
Try not to be too hard on him. Like every person new to
the hobby he fed them, they seemed to eat it and look
for more and each time he fed them they ate some,
so thinking "human" he fed them again.

He may have even read the container that said something
like feed x number of times/day and followed the
"destructions."

I would do the water change, and at the same time I would
also vacuum the gravel throughly. Be sure to match the
temperatures of the replacement water and the tank water,
and be sure to use water conditioner to remove the chlorine
and chloramine.

After the first massive water change, wait a day and then
test. Depending upon the results you would want to do
another massive one, or just a regular one, then slip back
into the once a week changes of 10-20% that you were
doing.

Frank


-->>> The Confidence of Amateurs, is the Envy of Professionals <<<--

Daerelle,

Despite the "destructions" on the food container, most fish can go for more than a few days without any food. Why not hold off feeding your fish until your mini-cycle is complete?

By not feeding your fish, you are not adding to the ammonia and nitrites due to uneaten food and increased fish wastes. Once the mini-cycle has passed, you may want to show your husband how to feed the fish.

Oh, remind him that the container is not the handy single serving size!



__________
"To steal ideas from one person is plagiarism; to steal from many is research."
researched from Steven Wright

Daerelle,

The elephant nose will be fine without eating for at least 5 to 7 days. They do like live food, particularly worms and insect larvae. If you would like to feed him, place a couple of small red worms in the tank. He should be very appreciative...

Your tank is definitely cycling as ammonia rises and nitrites rise. Do add Prime to detoxify the ammonia and nitites during this period. In addition to being a very good de-chlorinator and de-chloraminator, the product will knock down the toxicity of your mini-cycle.



__________
"To steal ideas from one person is plagiarism; to steal from many is research."
researched from Steven Wright

Hi,
Actually its just a minor setback. You did the required
maintenance to clean things up including several water
changes. Now it is time to let the bacterial colonies
recover and do their thing. Go back to feeding normally,
(once or twice a day) small amounts, and weekly water
changes of 10-20% and let things settle down, including
the fish. Test the water regularly, and watch the fish.
If they show signs of distress, then do water changes more
often. If they continue to eat, and act naturally, then
stick to the once a week routine.

Frank


-->>> The Confidence of Amateurs, is the Envy of Professionals <<<--

Hi,
If this was an established, cycled tank, before the feeding
incident, then the water changes are going to be necessary
to dilute the "soup" that resulted.

If this is a brand new tank, with brand new fish, and this
feeding incident occurred, then you have two major
problems.

First, the elephant nose fish is not a good fish to use
to cycle a tank. Many fish are delicate in that they
cannot tolerate any ammonia or nitrite and must only be
added to a fully cycled tank. They simply won't make it
through the cycling process.

Second, if this a new tank, then you need to allow the
"soup" to cook. You need to provide a minimum number of
fish (if you are going to cycle the tank with fish) and
expect the ammonia to climb to values that can be over
6 before starting to fall. As the bacteria take hold
and begin to convert the ammonia to nitrite, the
ammonia values will begin to fall as the nitrite values
begin to rise. Then the nitrite values can peak at values
over 10 while the ammonia values steadily decrease. The
last step in the cycling process is for the bacteria to
begin to change the nitrite to nitrate. As this happens
the ammonia readings should decrease to zero, and the
nitrite readings decrease, while the nitrate values rise.
Eventually, the ammonia, and nitrite readings will be
zero and the nitrates, somewhere around 40.
When, and only when, the ammonia and nitrite readings are
zero is the tank fully cycled. Many fish simply cannot
survive the toxicity of the nitrogen cycle and will die.
If you do water changes during a tanks' cycling period,
you merely lengthen the time it takes the tank to cycle.
You have to let it "cook."

If this feeding event happened to an established
tank that was finished with its cycling period a while ago
then you have a polluted tank and in the end, you may have
to move the fish to a temporary location (another tank,
or even to another location such as a LFS) while you break
the tank down and clean everything. Then you will have to
restart the nitrogen cycle all over again.

Frank


-->>> The Confidence of Amateurs, is the Envy of Professionals <<<--

You'll have the same issues with the 10g only even worse. The fish will still produce waste only this tank will be at point zero and you'll have ammonia. If you strip the tank down you won't gain anything and it could take a month to get cycled again. At this point you just need a week or maybe 2 to finish it off. Could be done in just a day or 2 though you never know. Your best off doing water changes daily to keep things under control so the fish aren't stressed. Don't feed them and possibly move the elephant nose to an established tank. That will lessen the bioload and help the tank cycle faster. If you move fish to another smaller uncycled tank and strip down this tank you looking at taking at least double the amount of time and effort it will if you let things run their course. I don't think it's even been a week yet and your already getting impatient. It can take several weeks to reastablish things but it could take a month or more to start over. Fish tanks take time and patience.

Adding water from an established tank does not speed up a cycle. So few bacteria are floating around in the water that their numbers aren't worth mentioning. What you need is filter media or substrate from another cycled tank.