Paint Fumes And Fish

[catxx]

my flat had a flood courtesy of a stoner neighbour upstairs this week, and in light of this the majority of the flat needs redecoration/painting. I will be able to shuffle the tanks out of the rooms that are being painted, but due to my flat being the size of a postage stamp, they may still be susceptible to possible fumes, as long as all the windows are open will they be ok? they are all secure lidded tanks not open top. i'll hopefully be able to put them on worktops and the table in the kitchen BUT my kitchen has no door...

 

[Ludwig Venter]

Tough call, I once painted out the ceiling of my fish room with Gloss enamel paints cause a mouldy black film was developing on it from the evaporating water. tanks were not covered and I did notice a oily/ rainbowy film floating on the waters, but did'nt loose any fish (or notice stress).... Cannot however guarantee that it wo'nt happen elsewhere...

Maybe ask a neighbour to board your tank for a week whilst this is done, just to make absolutely sure.

 

[ox5477]

well if you can seal the tanks off in a bedroom or something... and make sure the windows where your painting are open, the tanks should be relativily protected. If you really get worried, pack a towel or some old t-shirts around the edge of the door that is seperating the tank room from the painting area and should be fine.

Now painting right above where the tanks are like Ludwig did... no guarentees there....

Ox

 

[Colin_T]

If you use water based paints the fish should be fine. If you use turps based paints then keep them out of the room for a couple of days.
Keep the tanks covered and maybe add some carbon to the filters. They should be all right if they are in a different room to the one being painted and if you have a window open then they shouldn't have any problems.
If your really worried then do a daily 50% water change for a few days after you have painted. That will dilute anything that gets into the water.

 

[catxx]

thanks guys. unfortunately don't know the neighbours so can't rely on them. they definitely won't be in the same room as the painting, but may be moved into a recently painted room (pretty much the whole of the flat needs repainting, gah). they are in heavy lidded tanks with few open cracks (two aqua one 320s and a mirabello 30) so hopefully that will go a long way to protecting them and i will be analysing any paint work that gets done. the repair man is coming to quote tomorrow and i'll find out what needs to be done then.

 

[Gill]

my flat had a flood courtesy of a stoner neighbour upstairs this week, and in light of this the majority of the flat needs redecoration/painting. I will be able to shuffle the tanks out of the rooms that are being painted, but due to my flat being the size of a postage stamp, they may still be susceptible to possible fumes, as long as all the windows are open will they be ok? they are all secure lidded tanks not open top. i'll hopefully be able to put them on worktops and the table in the kitchen BUT my kitchen has no door...

We finished painting the 3 rooms that surround the 5*3*2 and it was fine.
We left the doors and windows open and i had a occilating fan blowing air out of the rooms towards the doors and windows.
I used Vinyl Matt/Silk Emulsion with no Problems.

Did not use an terps and just rinsed the brushes and left them to dry or wrapped them in clingfilm to keep the paint from drying out on the bristles. works really good and saves on wasted paint.

Plus i added a Massive piston sriven air pump to keep air in the water column clean,

HTH

 

[wilchil64]

my flat had a flood courtesy of a stoner neighbour upstairs this week, and in light of this the majority of the flat needs redecoration/painting. I will be able to shuffle the tanks out of the rooms that are being painted, but due to my flat being the size of a postage stamp, they may still be susceptible to possible fumes, as long as all the windows are open will they be ok? they are all secure lidded tanks not open top. i'll hopefully be able to put them on worktops and the table in the kitchen BUT my kitchen has no door...

Does this apply to paint stripper too? Not sure if it's turps based, it doesn't say anything on the container about being harmful to aquatic life, but I can't move my fish out of the room I'm stripping in.

 

[WoodenChair]

Colin said it all, and ive verified this at other sources.

Oil based paints
turpentine
Varnish
Stain
Killz (its a sealer, it will actually kill you if you expose yourself too it for too long)

Water based sherwin williams eggshell white? Not a problem. When we repainted, we kept the windows up and turned off the air pump (left the filter running of course lol) but turned the air pump off during the paint job because it will suction in vapors and diffuse them into the water quite rapidly expecially if your running a skimmer block or something else fine like that.

Now what we did the SECOND time around was quite creative...

AS follows:

step one. Saran wrap the lid of your tank.
step two. Stand back and say "that looks pretty funny". Proceed to enjoy it.
step three. Check to see if its raining. If rain is equal to 1 then don't paint, if rain equals 0 then proceed to step 4
step four. Put the dang air pump outside and run that tube in!
step five. As saran wrap starts to bubble up from pressure (if you did a good job that is) Get your trusty pin ready.
step six. Poke ONLY AS MANY HOLES AS NEEDED to allow that air to escape without blowing off the saran wrap, this keeps a positive pressure inside the tank. Air out = no fumes in

Great success.


-Chairman Wood

(Doe's not guarantee this method and takes no responsibility for lost fish or suffocated adults)