SOS! tank crash!

[Larry Grenier]

My tank went totally slime; I mean really slimy on every surface and cloudy water. It stunk and several fish & shrimp didn’t make it. pH went down a little but not a lot. Before this incident everything was fine including plants growing fast and big. Only thing I can think of was the fact that one of my DIY CO2 tipped over and maybe some of the liquid was pumped into the tank. I think most of the plants may survive but the hair algae seemed to melt like a dying crypt. I went to my Amano gallery to make me feel better. Any theories about what I may have done wrong? Be kind, I’ve historically been a brown thumb.    

[krisw]

Hi Larry... I had my DIY CO2 bottle leak once, when above my tank, and the water went cloudy, and smelled like a brewery. (Like apper cider to be exact.) Is this the kind of smell you experienced?

-Kris

[RTRJR]

Yeast culture into the water is a smelly mess, no question.

Lots of scrubbing and scraping with a big diatom running followed by massive water chages would be my suggestion.

[Larry Grenier]

The smell was somewhere in-between rotten eggs & nasty diapers.

Beyond a smelly mess, had to remove everything to start-over. Copious amounts of slime, had to clean the filters a few times a day before I gave-up and broke the tank down <img border="0" src="smileys/smiley19.gif" border="0">

[SCMurphy]

Sorry Larry,

That DIY CO2 can make a real mess of things if it gets into the tank. <img border="0" src="smileys/smiley33.gif" border="0"> You ready to go pressurized now?

[Larry Grenier]

Sean,

Well, it's not Christmas and my birthday was last month soooo <img border="0" src="smileys/smiley5.gif" border="0">

[Aaron]

Make an overflow bottle for your DIY in the meantime. Have the line run into another empty bottle and THEN into the tank. That way if it tips over it's less likely to run into the tank and only into the empty bottle.<edited><editID>Aaron</editID><editDate>38387.5735532407</editDate></edited>

[krisw]

Won't this make the CO2 output last a shorter amount of time because it has to keep pressure on an entire other bottle? My solution was to just put the bottle under the tank (instead of on top) with a one-way valve. If the bottle emptied from the bottle compressing, I highly recommend the rigid bottles from Simply-Orange orange juice. (Plus it's darn good orange juice).

[Larry Grenier]

Actually, it's one of those hagen C02 things; same as DIY... I have two on the tank. They sit under the tank. One fell over and probably sat there for a while. I believe that what happened was that the outlet was submerged yet the fermentation kept-on going; the pressure caused the liquid to be pumped up into the tank.

Thanks all for your input.
   

[Aaron]

The overflow bottle can be a much smaller bottle. I would use it instead of a valve or use a valve, but not both for the reason Kris mentioned.