Yeast Infection

[SpidersWeb]

Changed my DIY CO2 mix this morning, and I put in too much yeast by the looks of it :oops: a few minutes ago I spotted some of the froth going in to the tank! The water has gone cloudy as you can imagine. I've cleared the lines, water down the mixtures, and added carbon to the filter to try and pull the foam back out again.

The fish do not seem bothered by it, but is there anything else I should be doing? How much of a problem is this? Any other problems besides cloudy water I might face?

I did a 20% water change yesterday with rain water, and I can do more today if its necessary, just hard for one person (me) to get the hood off. Kind of concerned because this tank has six angels, and seven Firemouths in it, and I'd hate for anything to happen to them due to my stupidity.

[MarkLB]

Hi Spider.

By the sounds of it you caught it pretty quick so I reckon you'll be OK but I'd do another 20% water change.

A mate of mine had a similar thing happen but the foam was going into the tank for 4 hours. He did a 50% water change and another 50% 2 days later. All his fish survived.

[sharn]

it might cause an algae bloom (not sure, its a small lost snippet in my brain), not sure if its from the sugar or the yeast but yeah... hope all the fishies are ok

[SpidersWeb]

Cheers guys Good to hear its not a drama.

Water seems to have cleared up mostly now, and the fish aren't showing any signs of stress, so its looking sweet as now. Did have me worried though.

[whetu]

How are things now?

My understanding is that it could cause an algae bloom from the extra nutrients, but a fresh yeast solution isn't too dangerous. BUT if it was a 'mature' solution that had been running for a while it's likely to be quite acidic and the pH shock would be the biggest risk.

Also was it just yeast, sugar and water? Did it have any baking soda in it? Again, the pH would probably be the biggest danger. Sounds like you did the right thing with the carbon and the quick water change, so hopefully everything has returned to normal

[SpidersWeb]

Hey whetu,

Things were going no problems. I'm not sure if it was the carbon, or just natural settling, but the fog cleared in a few hours. The mixture was brand new, and I realise my mistake.

1/4 teaspoon is not the same as one heaped teaspoon :oops: :oops:

Nope no baking soda.

I also learned an additional lesson, and what a fabulous one it was indeed, first I'll explain my setup.

Underneath the tank I have a bucket of water heated by a 25W heater, keeps the yeast at 20C during the day, and I shut it off at night. in the bucket are two 2L containers, each with yeast mix, which go to two air hoses, then in to a T, then up in to the tank and down to the bottom where a Nutrafin diffuser is located.

Worked well.

Except when I disconnected it, I realised the danger of a syphon, so I put the end of the hose in the bucket of water, effictively trapping air inside the tube, it sat for a day or two like this no problem.

Then last night I decide to have an early night, and Helen thankfully shut down my lights. One of my lights does not have a switch, or timer, so we manually unplug it, the plug is a little bent so you have to kind of yank it. The lines to the plugs are nearby the CO2 tubing, so when the plug was yanked, a little unconnected piece of air tubing fell on the carpet.

Thankfully at 4AM I got hungry and go down stairs. 'Oh noes' I say as I notice my socks are wet. Thankfully it hadn't finished draining but still got a good 180 or so litres of water in the kitchen, *joy*

Oh and I had 450W of heaters (3 x 150) running, so the remaining 30 or so litres in the tank was getting very very hot, the front glass of the aquarium was hot.

Thankfully no fish were lost. In fact I think they kind of liked the 90% water change. The tank was refilled and finished at 78F, I'd say the water in the tank was above 90F and with no surface movement except a pleco who was FREAKING out like crazy and splashing the place up, so I'm guessing it was a huge relief for the fish. I consider myself very lucky that the high temp didn't cause any sickness or fatalities.

SO yeah leasson learned, if you disconnect your DIY CO2, make sure the air tubing to the diffuser is raised ABOVE the tank or disconnected completely.

ugh we're STILL working on cleaning the kitchen, god damn carpet, ugh *curses*

I installed a check valve, only to find out it was faulty, so dont trust check valves for CO2.

[SpidersWeb]

Oh and the equipment was fine too.

Jebo 819 must have spent about an full hour pumping pure air.

Shark internal must have spent about 2+ hours pumping air.

1 heater operates almost vertical, and ran in water/air most of the night I guess

2 heaters spent about 2 hours out of water, no cracks, no problems.

Times are guesses, but DAMMMMMMNNNNN thats lucky.

[whetu]

OH MY GOODNESS!

The potential for disaster there was HUGE!

Wow you certainly have had a lucky break and a very graphic lesson on how something so simple could have ended badly. Thanks for sharing your experience and allowing us all to learn without having to clean 180 litres of water off our floors! :lol:

[Caryl]

You were very lucky. You might still have a whitespot outbreak or something else as a result of the stress (on the fish that is, not yourself ) so keep a close eye on the fish over the next week or two.