dead plants and cloudy water

[Tl52505]

I was out of town for my first year of college and my parents were supposed to be taking care of my tank, I showed them how to do everything and told them to make sure they were feeding them. I got back and they "forgot" to take care of it and now I have chunks of dead plants, all my fish are dead except one, and the water is cloudy. I cleaned my filter out multiple times and did a water change but that didnt really seem to help. I spent around an hour picking out chunks of dead plants by hand and got as much as I could, I also picked up a bunch of ghost shrimp to help with cleanup. Is there anything else I can do other than wait it out.

here is a pic of before I left, and some from now. It shouldn't be hard for you to determine which is which

 

[jaylach]

Sorry for your losses and issues.

Personally I'd tear down the tank and start over.

If you don't want to re-do the tank do as close to 100% water changes as you can manage. Stir up the substrate before the water changes to stir up what is probably a lot of gunk that you can then easily siphon out. You can do the same by doing substrate vacuums but stirring up and just siphoning is easier in the long run.

I'm sort of worried about the shrimp you added as I would imagine that your nitrates are off the scale.

 

[Archerfish]

In a well-established tank, the cause is usually debris from decaying plants (as you mentioned), dirty substrate, or a really dirty filter. I would cautiously proceed and not make any radical changes. It looks like you have a canister filter based on the hoses in the background, is that correct?
I would do this:
Safely park the StarWars Battle Cruiser and the Storm Troopers in an orbiting Death Star.
Test your water parameters. That is the first step and also essential information. As a college student, you know the importance of essential data and facts. Please let us know what you discover, and we can possibly help you proceed. In the meantime, pat your folks on the back and thank them for taking on a task they didn't ask for!

 

[Tl52505]

In a well-established tank, the cause is usually debris from decaying plants (as you mentioned), dirty substrate, or a really dirty filter. I would cautiously proceed and not make any radical changes. It looks like you have a canister filter based on the hoses in the background, is that correct?
I would do this:
Safely park the StarWars Battle Cruiser and the Storm Troopers in an orbiting Death Star.
Test your water parameters. That is the first step and also essential information. As a college student, you know the importance of essential data and facts. Please let us know what you discover, and we can possibly help you proceed. In the meantime, pat your folks on the back and thank them for taking on a task they didn't ask for!

I tested ph and ammonia, because those are the test kits I already had and both of those were ok, and yea I have a canister filter, today it actually looks really good after cleaning everything out a lot last night, the water is pretty clear and I don’t see any more debris floating around, but I made a major f up, I cleaned out the debris from the filter this morning but I didn’t put it back together tight enough and my carpet is soaked, don’t know if anyone knows but is there a good way to get that dry under the dresser. also thanks for the comment about the legos, gave me a good laugh

 

[Uberhoust]

For the carpet getting wet the only thing I have found to be effective is to use a wet dry vacuum, followed by a number of days running fans, if you have a dehumidifier I would put it in your room. It would be best to move the tank if you can because any moisture in the flooring will wick up into the furniture, anything with pressboard will start to fall apart. I find with canister filters that is is nearly impossible to maintain a canister without spilling some water. I put my canisters in a plastic bin, just in case there is a bit of leak that I did not notice. Water on the floor and in the carpet must be dealt with ASAP otherwise you will get water damage and mold that is very difficult to deal with without pulling up the carpet.

Are you going back to school? If so you might consider leaving fish keeping for a time when you are not away from home for months, if you re-setup your tank you might be setting up for another failure, fish are obviously not your parents thing. My first year of university I left a crow in care of my parents and that was a disaster, later our kids left animals with my wife and I as well, it was supposed to be short term but in one case it was closer to a 15 year commitment.

 

[Tl52505]

For the carpet getting wet the only thing I have found to be effective is to use a wet dry vacuum, followed by a number of days running fans, if you have a dehumidifier I would put it in your room. It would be best to move the tank if you can because any moisture in the flooring will wick up into the furniture, anything with pressboard will start to fall apart. I find with canister filters that is is nearly impossible to maintain a canister without spilling some water. I put my canisters in a plastic bin, just in case there is a bit of leak that I did not notice. Water on the floor and in the carpet must be dealt with ASAP otherwise you will get water damage and mold that is very difficult to deal with without pulling up the carpet.

Are you going back to school? If so you might consider leaving fish keeping for a time when you are not away from home for months, if you re-setup your tank you might be setting up for another failure, fish are obviously not your parents thing. My first year of university I left a crow in care of my parents and that was a disaster, later our kids left animals with my wife and I as well, it was supposed to be short term but in one case it was closer to a 15 year commitment.

I’m not going back yet, but I plan to have my friend come take care of it who also keeps fish which my parents are ok with, I can’t really move it anywhere because of how heavy it is, and I can’t really vac under it very well so I have been using towels. I was going to try to hit it with a hairdryer if anyone thinks that would help. I’ve gotten water on my carpet plenty of times, just not to the point where it is this soaked.

 

[Back in the fold]

How was it possible for that to happen with the Millennium Falcon so close by ?

 

[Tl52505]

How was it possible for that to happen with the Millennium Falcon so close by ?

lmao, lego men have been sacraficed to the fish before, probably chewbaccas doing XD

 

[Tl52505]

For the carpet getting wet the only thing I have found to be effective is to use a wet dry vacuum, followed by a number of days running fans, if you have a dehumidifier I would put it in your room. It would be best to move the tank if you can because any moisture in the flooring will wick up into the furniture, anything with pressboard will start to fall apart. I find with canister filters that is is nearly impossible to maintain a canister without spilling some water. I put my canisters in a plastic bin, just in case there is a bit of leak that I did not notice. Water on the floor and in the carpet must be dealt with ASAP otherwise you will get water damage and mold that is very difficult to deal with without pulling up the carpet.

Are you going back to school? If so you might consider leaving fish keeping for a time when you are not away from home for months, if you re-setup your tank you might be setting up for another failure, fish are obviously not your parents thing. My first year of university I left a crow in care of my parents and that was a disaster, later our kids left animals with my wife and I as well, it was supposed to be short term but in one case it was closer to a 15 year commitment.

Im not sure right now, but I may be able to pull out the bottom of the cabinet to get to the bottom, If I can I will probably put towels down and leave a small fan on the area overnight.

 

[Tl52505]

Sorry for your losses and issues.

Personally I'd tear down the tank and start over.

If you don't want to re-do the tank do as close to 100% water changes as you can manage. Stir up the substrate before the water changes to stir up what is probably a lot of gunk that you can then easily siphon out. You can do the same by doing substrate vacuums but stirring up and just siphoning is easier in the long run.

I'm sort of worried about the shrimp you added as I would imagine that your nitrates are off the scale.

Had the nitrates tested at petsmart because I don’t have a kit, and they were high, but not higher than their chart XD. Ps the shrimp are all still fine and the tank is looking a lot better

 

[Byron]

First off, always give the test result numbers. None of us knows what "ok" or "high" means.

Given your situation, I agree that you should not get any fish until you are home permanently. Leave the tank running.

 

[Tl52505]

First off, always give the test result numbers. None of us knows what "ok" or "high" means.

Given your situation, I agree that you should not get any fish until you are home permanently. Leave the tank running.

They didn’t give me h the exact numbers for the nitrates, probably because it was just a free test, but the ammonia was showing as 0 on my tests and the ph was showing either 7.2 or 7.6. The single neon tetra that survived is still eating and everything but he looks rough, still no dead ghost shrimp and they did a nice job of cleaning out the substrate.

 

[Slaphppy7]

What kind of test kit are you using?

You need a liquid test kit, for ammonia, nitrIte, nitrAte, and ph...many of us use this one: https://apifishcare.com/product/freshwater-master-test-kit

 

[Tl52505]

What kind of test kit are you using?

You need a liquid test kit, for ammonia, nitrIte, nitrAte, and ph...many of us use this one: https://apifishcare.com/product/freshwater-master-test-kit

I have liquid ones for ph and ammonia, but at petsmart they had test strips that they dipped in, they didn’t have any nitrate test kits there for me to buy

 

[Slaphppy7]

I have liquid ones for ph and ammonia, but at petsmart they had test strips that they dipped in, they didn’t have any nitrate test kits there for me to buy

If you are going to continue to keep fish, I recommend getting the kit I linked above