Well, that was a dumb thing to do

[chicken]

Since our power was back, I spent a lot of time fiddling with my tanks today. Tested water, fed fish and shrimp, observed each tank to take stock of all the inhabitants, dosed tanks. You get the idea. We have a total of 15 tanks, ranging in size from 2.5 to 30 gallons, so this took awhile.

By the time I got to the dosing, I was kind of on autopilot. Until I caught myself putting 1/4 teaspoon of KNO3 into a tank I had recently rescaped. Not just rescaped, but changed substrate. To mineralized soil.

I'm such an idiot.

[Complexity]

You're not an idiot (either that or I'm a really big idiot)!

A month or two ago, I was doing a complete clean out of my 75g tank which included bleaching the tank and all the equipment.

While waiting on some things to soak in the bleach, I went on to do the regular water changes on my other tanks. Got to my 5g RCS tank. Syphoned off the water. Grabbed the bottle to condition the water so I could refill the tank. Opened the bottle... and poured directly into the tank... BLEACH!

I instantly realized what I had done so I grabbed my bottle of Prime and poured some in. Then filled the tank with water. Drained it, added more Prime, filled with water. Drained, more Primed, and filled it a last time.

To my utter amazement, not a single shrimp died (that I could see). My oto, assassin snails, and all the plants were fine, too. Thank goodness Prime dechlorinates water instantly!

[jreich]

Wow man u got really lucky there. Cought it rite in time.

[PlantedRich]

That demonstates something that I have suspected but never proven. Chlorine does burn gills and soft flesh but it is not the instant harm we often think of it being. That brings back the old discussion of whether we need to treat water before, during, or after water changes. Seems to me with the number of people doing it each way and what you found, I think chlorine is less a danger than many think. Short term exposure, even at high concentration is not instant death.

You did do a big NO! NO! even for me!

[Willamette]

<------*Chemical Engineer*

Thing is that bleach itself isn't chlorine. When she dumped it into the water (NaClO + H2O), it slowly began to break down into Sodium Hydroxide (basically this ends up as water and sodium, depending on pH)), oxygen, and chlorine.

4 NaClO + 2 H2O → 4 NaOH + 2 Cl2 + O2

The chlorine is only slowly released...so its actually a good thing she did multiple water changes over time. Bleach isn't as big a deal as its made out to be.

[fusiongt]

You're not an idiot. Most of us have made bad mistakes with just 1 tank, let alone 15!

[Complexity]

Originally Posted by Willamette

<------*Chemical Engineer*

Thing is that bleach itself isn't chlorine. When she dumped it into the water (NaClO + H2O), it slowly began to break down into Sodium Hydroxide (basically this ends up as water and sodium, depending on pH)), oxygen, and chlorine.

4 NaClO + 2 H2O → 4 NaOH + 2 Cl2 + O2

The chlorine is only slowly released...so its actually a good thing she did multiple water changes over time. Bleach isn't as big a deal as its made out to be.

Thank you for this! I had always wondered if the water changes were necessary or if the Prime was enough (and one water change), but I'm a big believer in fresh water whenever there's a problem with the current water.

So the chemical reaction explains why the bleach didn't immediately kill the shrimp.

I'm not one of those people who freak out over using bleach to clean aquarium equipment (which is why I had the bleach out in the first place), but I would not have expected to have no loss of shrimp at all with this. I appreciate you explaining the reason why.

[PlantedRich]

It's one of those well kept secrets among the bleach promoters! We don't let people know that we kill our fish every day only to secretly go out and replace them so we can continue to sell bleach. Even though we know that bleach is not really straight chlorine, we don't want most people to read the label and find out the secret!

The truth will set you free! But many people prefer to stay tied to ignorance.

Enjoy the holiday and don't take life too seriously!

[Complexity]

LOL @ Rich! Be afraid. Be very afraid.

Speaking of idiotic things we all do with our tanks. I don't have enough fingers to count how many times I have had impromptu cleaning sessions in my house thanks to my inept handling of my python water changer!

[PlantedRich]

I got excited about getting about 40 large Protomelas settled in and ran the reserve water barrel over, while my wife and I were vacing up the water, I had her dump the buckets the fish had arrived in. Handy place was the bathroom stool. When we went to dump the vac in the stool there were eyes looking up at us. I had missed one female and she was in the stool! She's still in my tank but she never seems to trust me!

Only people not making mistakes are the ones not doing very much. I worked with a couple of them!

[Complexity]

Originally Posted by PlantedRich

Only people not making mistakes are the ones not doing very much.

I love that quote!

Your story reminds me of when I came home with 100 amano shrimp. I went about my normal drip acclimation process which doesn't require that I watch them every second of the entire time. Or so I thought. I went about my business and came back to check on them, only to find out that one of my much too curious cats had not only been checking them out, but had knocked over their bucket!

You have not lived until you have tried to catch 100 amano shrimp off of a wet carpeted floor while two cats insist on helping!

[Willamette]

Originally Posted by Complexity

You have not lived until you have tried to catch 100 amano shrimp off of a wet carpeted floor while two cats insist on helping!

I had a similar experience, only with RCS...but I left their container at the top of the stairs so I could quickly run back and shut a faucet off...but then my wife came along and kicked the bucket. So I had cascading shrimp flipping around halfway down the stairs...

[HD Blazingwolf]

Originally Posted by Willamette

I had a similar experience, only with RCS...but I left their container at the top of the stairs so I could quickly run back and shut a faucet off...but then my wife came along and kicked the bucket. So I had cascading shrimp flipping around halfway down the stairs...

wow and shrimp are sooo untrusting..
its like "IM TRYING TO SAVE YOUR LIFE LITTLE BUGGER"
and the shrimp is like NOOOOOOOOOOOOOO flip flop flip flap jump dart

i had an oto get stuck in a net. i swear that little guy fought me every step of the way. a loose cord was stuck under his "gill flap" whatever u wanna call it. so without sawing that off i had to meticulusly work it out poor guy is still alive and kickin though