Help: DIY CO2 disaster

Yesterday my DIY CO2 reactor (coke bottle) fell over and managed to dispense
just under 1/4 of the total mixture in to my tank(tube goes in to Fluval
filter). My wife just called to tell me the aquarium water is a milky white
color and some fish are dead. She indicated that It looked "alive, like
plankton". Is this possible? Perhaps a chain reaction? Help.

default wrote:
Yesterday my DIY CO2 reactor (coke bottle) fell over and managed to dispense
just under 1/4 of the total mixture in to my tank(tube goes in to Fluval
filter). My wife just called to tell me the aquarium water is a milky white
color and some fish are dead. She indicated that It looked "alive, like
plankton". Is this possible? Perhaps a chain reaction? Help.


Someone had this happen last month. I believe the advice was to do big
water changes daily until the mess is back under control.

--
__ Elaine T __
__' http://eethomp.com/fish.html '__

I guess my main concern is if the alcohol slurry has wiped out all of the
previous biological filtering, and the "living" plankton my wife described.
I don't leave work for a few hours still....

"Elaine T" wrote in message
m...
default wrote:
Yesterday my DIY CO2 reactor (coke bottle) fell over and managed to
dispense
just under 1/4 of the total mixture in to my tank(tube goes in to Fluval
filter). My wife just called to tell me the aquarium water is a milky
white
color and some fish are dead. She indicated that It looked "alive, like
plankton". Is this possible? Perhaps a chain reaction? Help.


Someone had this happen last month. I believe the advice was to do big
water changes daily until the mess is back under control.

--
__ Elaine T __
__' http://eethomp.com/fish.html '__

default wrote:
I guess my main concern is if the alcohol slurry has wiped out all of the
previous biological filtering, and the "living" plankton my wife described.
I don't leave work for a few hours still....

Hard to know what's happened to the biofiltration without an ammonia
test, but the total percentage of alcohol in your tank should be
vanishingly small. The "plankton" is probably strings of yeast or
bacteria growing on the sugar. You could tell your wife to add a dose
of an ammonia neutralizer like Prime, AmQuel or Stress Coat if you have
any around. An airstone would also be a good idea if she can set one
up, since the yeast and bacteria will be depeleting oxygen.

Good luck with it.
--
__ Elaine T __
__' http://eethomp.com/fish.html '__

Thank you.
That makes sense. I only hope it is not a total loss before I get home.

"Elaine T" wrote in message
om...
default wrote:
I guess my main concern is if the alcohol slurry has wiped out all of
the
previous biological filtering, and the "living" plankton my wife
described.
I don't leave work for a few hours still....

Hard to know what's happened to the biofiltration without an ammonia
test, but the total percentage of alcohol in your tank should be
vanishingly small. The "plankton" is probably strings of yeast or
bacteria growing on the sugar. You could tell your wife to add a dose
of an ammonia neutralizer like Prime, AmQuel or Stress Coat if you have
any around. An airstone would also be a good idea if she can set one
up, since the yeast and bacteria will be depeleting oxygen.

Good luck with it.
--
__ Elaine T __
__' http://eethomp.com/fish.html '__

"salcini" wrote in news:cvgc5b$7un$1
@gnus01.u.washington.edu:

Thank you.
That makes sense. I only hope it is not a total loss before I get home.


Once you get it under control (water changes) there should be no lasting
damage (been there done that). You might want to switch to a wider CO2
bottle. I found the large plastic jugs (think they are about 3-4) you can
get juices in (cranberry, ocean spray etc.) are great and much less
tippable.

P.

In article ,
default wrote:
Yesterday my DIY CO2 reactor (coke bottle) fell over and managed to dispense
just under 1/4 of the total mixture in to my tank(tube goes in to Fluval
filter). My wife just called to tell me the aquarium water is a milky white
color and some fish are dead. She indicated that It looked "alive, like
plankton". Is this possible? Perhaps a chain reaction? Help.

Nah, that's the yeast. Some people claim you can feed yeast to daphnia
but that's sure never worked for me. It justmakes a white stringy mess no
matter how litle I use.

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