while I was doing a water change something caused my thermometer to break releasing what looks like tiny mercury BBs on the bottom of my tank. I tried picking them all out the best I can what other percausions should I take?
HELP!!! my thermometer broke in my tank!
- Thread starter Arojuana
- Start date
Hello; Unless your thermometer was quite old or a laboratory type, it may not have mercury in it. Some thermometers have small lead or steel shot in the base as ballast to help them float properly.
Mercury would have been a shiny dense liquid and would break up into smaller drops when you tried to pick it up. (Like the bad robot in terminator 2.) Mercury is very dense and will eventually make its way to the lowest point of the tank. If it truly is mercury, you will have a daunting problem. I would take the tank down . get the fish , plants and other stuff out, but leave the gravel in place. Siphon the water from no lower than just above the gravel, then carefully prop the tank so that one corner is lower than all the others. Allow it to sit that way for some time so that the mercury can eventually settle in that corner. Not sure how to proceede from there. carefully scoop out the gravel and suction it up in some way.
I really doubt that it is mercury. I have an old lab thermometer from way back. When I was in jr. high we would buy small glass thermometers and delibertly break them in order to play with the mercury. We used bare hands to roll it around on desks, rubbed it on coins. Break it into tiny balls and pushed them together to make a bigger ball. I am pretty sure the government banned it from most thermometers a long time ago.
Mercury would have been a shiny dense liquid and would break up into smaller drops when you tried to pick it up. (Like the bad robot in terminator 2.) Mercury is very dense and will eventually make its way to the lowest point of the tank. If it truly is mercury, you will have a daunting problem. I would take the tank down . get the fish , plants and other stuff out, but leave the gravel in place. Siphon the water from no lower than just above the gravel, then carefully prop the tank so that one corner is lower than all the others. Allow it to sit that way for some time so that the mercury can eventually settle in that corner. Not sure how to proceede from there. carefully scoop out the gravel and suction it up in some way.
I really doubt that it is mercury. I have an old lab thermometer from way back. When I was in jr. high we would buy small glass thermometers and delibertly break them in order to play with the mercury. We used bare hands to roll it around on desks, rubbed it on coins. Break it into tiny balls and pushed them together to make a bigger ball. I am pretty sure the government banned it from most thermometers a long time ago.
if that is mercury, you are finish! you cannot have kid(in the natural way) after touch mercury! you could just use a hose to take those thing out, water change also and every thing will be fine!
if its not fade into the water, it could be mercury!
if its not fade into the water, it could be mercury!
you have to have the mercury present in your blood stream at higher levels, and becoming infertile because of this is not very common.
most people who have high mercury in their blood streams tend to eat a lot of seafood. There was a study done a few yrs back on the Asian cultures around taiji where dolphins are eaten, and their levels are through the roof!
a small amount of mercury like in a thermometer could be considering very high! You can see that mercury level in our body usually measure in mg(milligram) while a small drop of mercury(like the amount of mercury usually in a small thermometer) can weight more than 10 gram which is more 10,000 mg, and that is a huge number!
But it needs to get into your blood system for it to affect your sterility like you had mentioned about it affecting.
it can go through your skin to your blood very easy! That is the dangerous of mercury!
If it's the typical thermometer bought from a petstore recently, no mercury worries.
Mercury thermometers stopped being made in 2001 here in the US.
Mercury thermometers stopped being made in 2001 here in the US.
and now they get the result of that! those people are very stupid or the professional who know how to handle mercury!