Near disaster

[jnguyen4007]

Talk about nearly having a heart attack last night. I was down stairs playing Call of Duty 4. At one point my daughter came down stairs then went back up stairs. Not realizing my daughter came back down stairs again because this time she was extremely quiet. After I got done with one of the stage of the game, I looked over to where my salt water tank was, there was my daughter, sitting on the floor with 1.6 oz container of flake food opened. There were flakes on the floor and the inside of my tank was filled with it. Not only was there fish flakes in the tank, but in the sump and the fuge section as well. I almost panicked. The first thing I did was took a small net and tried to remove what flakes I could out of the tank, shut it down and did about 50% water change and tried to suck up as much of the food as I could with the python. I then again used the python to remove as much of the food out of the sump and fuge section. Afterward, I called Bob (YBeNormal) to see what else I needed to do. Bob suggested that I set up an HOB filter to get it to pull some more of the floating fish flakes out. He also suggested of using a diatom filter that he happens to have. Bob came over, set it up and spent the next hour helping me vacuumed up much of the fish food that settled to the back of the tank where the python could not reached. I let the diatom filter ran until nearly 2 AM before I was satisfied with it then I connected it to the sump to clean up the rest of the food waste there. I checked on the tank and the sump this morning and they're definitely looking much better. I'll test the water after work and if necessary, will do another big water change. With Bob's help, we managed to divert what could have been a total disaster with my tank.

 

James

[yauger]

dude... close call, I'm happy to hear that Bob came over to help you!! WAMAS AT WORK!!! man o man gotta keep an eye on kids!!! can't wait till its my turn!!

[ReeferMan]

This is the reason i like mine being in wall and up high

Edited December 18, 2007 by phisigs79

[Tri Bui]

Yes, that's kids! they like to have fun too! I keep my fish food and others stuffs where they can't reach and alway lock the doors to the sump, pump, protein skimmer.

Close call but you save the day. Don't worry you will have more surprise to come in near future, just don't put down your guard. Good Luck! stay alert!.....

[zotzer]

OMG James....so glad you were on your game and noticed something was up!! And kudos to Bob for jumping in to help....that rocks!!!

 

I imagine the "pretty fishies will be dead fishies, dear" lecture was fun. Wish some of this stuff was captured on tape for us child-less folk. LOL

 

Tracy

[vaironman]

James,

 

Welcome to the baby world and more surprises in the future will keep your handfull, I am sure. Do you have a child safety lock for your tank stand? You might want to install that and lock all the food + fish tank equipments related in there. Hope everything will be fine and try to sit back, relax. It's a hobby. Your daughter is only learning + at curious age. She will develop fully concept of what she can and can not do when she reaches 3 - 4 years old.

 

Until then....., the tank is a hobby to keep your heart rate down.

 

KLee

[Rascal]

James,

 

Welcome to the baby world and more surprises in the future will keep your handfull, I am sure. Do you have a child safety lock for your tank stand?

 

A good idea. The real disaster would have been if she started messing around with all of the electrical stuff in there.

[johnnybv]

Great to have people around to help in crisis!! Way to go Bob!

 

john

[mexicanjavafish]

WOW im glad you and bob could fix things before anything happened.

 

this is good information to know, what with my little brother running around the house and getting into stuff all the time........

[rottloverr]

So glad this ended with a happy ending...

 

Cheers,

 

Sean

[jnguyen4007]

Thanks all for your advice and support. I think I would still be panicking right now and even took the day off from work so I could tend to the tank if Bob was not available to help me last night and to put my mind at ease. I definitely will keep everyone's advice and make sure that there is a mean for me to lock up food, chemicals and such to keep them away from my curious little daughter.

 

James

[YBeNormal]

I'm glad I had the diatom filter and was available to help. Diatom filters are old technology and cumbersome to use but they are hard to beat when it comes to polishing water. James had most of the gunk out of the tank by the time I arrived so the tank should be fine once he restores the aquascaping that got trashed during the cleanup effort.

 

For the record though, I think James dropped the food into the tank and is blaming it on his daughter just to avoid embarrassment. I mean, come on, take a look at the little angel in his avatar. Do you really believe that anything that cute could possibly do anything wrong?

[jnguyen4007]

For the record though, I think James dropped the food into the tank and is blaming it on his daughter just to avoid embarrassment. I mean, come on, take a look at the little angel in his avatar. Do you really believe that anything that cute could possibly do anything wrong?

 

HA! And that's where she fools you! My daughter, like my wife, are nothing short of devils in disguise. the horns and fangs come out when they're home alone.

[jamal]

im glad your tank is ok and chris made a good point about a high tank. i think when i upgrade and set up my fish room i will incorporate some of these ideas for when i have kids.

[MOT]

Just thank god for call of duty 4, you might not have caught it in time if your reflexes weren't in full gear :wink:

[davelin315]

James, be careful that your daughter doesn't have access to a sump. It's very easy for a child to drown in very little water. If she slips in without you noticing or while you're not there, she could very easily be injured or worse. I would definitely lock up the cabinet so that she cannot get any access to the tank at all. Even if you have to rig something up that makes it less attractive, think of the alternatives.

[treesprite]

I'm glad you got that mess cleaned up.

 

Remember the days when spices and fish food both came in little tin cans? When my son was around 4yo he took a bunch of spices from the kitchen cabinet and tried to feed the fish... nutmeg, cloves, cinamon, you name it water was color of mud. What is nearly impossible to believe is the fact that the danio lived in spite ofswimming around in that caustic muck.... now there's a fish that's nearly impossible to accidentally kill, but unfortunately it's a freshwater fish.

[HowardofNOVA]

This EXACT scenario happened about 2 years ago or so. Can't remember who, but they turned around and the whole container was empty and tank was a cloud of food!

 

...you know its better to fatten your fish up s-l-o-w-l-y then all at once right??

[jnguyen4007]

This EXACT scenario happened about 2 years ago or so. Can't remember who, but they turned around and the whole container was empty and tank was a cloud of food!

 

...you know its better to fatten your fish up s-l-o-w-l-y then all at once right??

 

 

You and I know that, but apparently my little 2 year old didn't. LOL

 

Looking back, it could have been a whole lot worse. She could have done it without me knowing it the whole night and let the food disolve and the ammonia spike be so high that it killed everything.

[jason the filter freak]

Wow disaster averted... I still cant figure out how much to feed my fish... just not the whole can. Good look out on Bob's part and glad you caught it in time. I keep a HOB filter with floss around for large particulate removal just for such a scenario. Great to hear it came out ok

[treesprite]

Keeping an HOB around as Jason mentioned is a really good idea,, but my guess is on really big tanks it would take more than one.

[Nitro Junkie]

Great to have people around to help in crisis!! Way to go Bob!

 

john

 

Way to help a friend out !