Mercury Thermometer Broke

[ghettobirdgimp]

Hi,

The thermometer was a cheap fish tank approved type. The liquid was redish with gray small balls in the bottom. I puchased it recently so mostly it was alcohol filled. Thanks for the info. I still would like to know what is the conversion for alkalinity from dKH to ppm? I have over 100 lbs of live rock in my 55 gal tank. With correct water conditions, how long would it take for coralline to spread from 2 rocks to the other 20 rocks?

Hi sahmof2,

Yep, yes those gray balls are DEFINATELY mercury . Here in australia there still available everywhere, cheap but reliable. I use em as well but i'm not anymore after the weekend gone.....

The mercury like someone else said will be in your substrate, its really heavy.

My venustus's (african cichlid - freshwater) broke the equivalant therometer (from mucking around with it) and scattered the mercury through a section of my tank on friday gone. I ended up taking out ALL my substrate completly on the weekend just gone, used rubber dishwashing gloves (brand new) so your not contacting yourself with it. Ironically it was the last to come out cause its so heavy that as you move the substrate around trying to get it out, the mercury balls end up sinking deeper into the substrate. To pick it out by hand would be like finding the proverbial needle in a haystack, especially in my mixed gravel/coral sand combo i had. I'd bet you would miss some.

This personally was the best bet for me, get that stuff out completly. Seeing i'm God of my 3 foot fish tank, I say no heavy metals for my little eco-system! : ) nor do i want my fish slowly overtime accumulating known toxins that will eventually impact on there health or it contributing to tank problems that arise that don't make sense (ie your standard water tests won't show any probs etc)

Rob

damn my first ever post here on this site and i think i'm wrong about the mercury part..... (doh!), my thermometer was basically this:

http/www.petsmart.com/global/product_det...845524441811426

and they say it doesn't contain mercury. Apologises to all -- thought i'd follow up so ppl don't start biffing it out with me! Still i rechon there lead or something, the balls were definately some kind of metal, maybe just to weigh the thing down with no other purpose...