Overfed Tank

Hi All

I have a planted tank that's been running for 2 years with black widow and cardinal tetras, platties, guppies and a clown pleco. 150liter with an external filter.

My problem is that my house sitter overfed the fish over the holidays, causing the water quality to go way down, as well as a lot of algae growth and waste in the water.

I'm wondering if a complete reboot of the tank might be a better solution than trying to cleanup the tank. I have an extra smaller tank that I can setup as a temporary tank, in which I can gradually replace the current water plus prevent the fish being exposed to the toxins and waste already in the tank.

The alternative is to clean the tank up as best I can, and hope that I can get as much of the waste out before it starts affecting the fish.

Most of the fish look healthy, except for a platty that has some kinds of scale growth / rot going on.

Any thoughts / experience on this?

J

 

I believe in not doing anything too drastic as that can also had huge amount of stress to the already stressed fish.

I would siphon out as much of the extra food and waste asap. Rinse the prefilter from your external filter in a bucket with some tank water to remove any uneaten food there. Leave the biomedia alone as they will be working hard. Then do a 25-30% water change every day for at least a week, if not two. Then resume normal weekly water changes. Use a good dechlorinator each time.

 

+10
Siphon out all the rubbish you can see and do relatively large water changes daily.
Check your water parameters (Amonia, Nitrite) to determine water change frequency and quantity.

 

Try the above advice before rebooting. In time, the algae should be well under control. Stick to smaller more frequent water changes, not massive changes at a time, tempting as it may be. The harm is already done, and recovering from here should be gradual, not kneejerk. Hope it works out, as it sucks to have to reboot (unless you were really just looking for an excuse).

 

Thanx, I've already started vacuuming out the junk and doing small water changes.
@dorff, I am actually thinking about a reboot, but not just yet!

 

Try and clean it up but if it fails make sure to keep your filter alive and clean the rest and start over. Keep the fish in the small tank and let the cleaned aquarium run with the old filter for about a week and then add one fish etc.

 

Most of the junk is now out, and it's looking better already. I also added a water treatment that also seems to have helped.

Thanx for all the advice!