Ok, so my son 18 mo, moved his step and slide think over to the tank, and lifted the lid, and dumped two half cans of food in 
I'm guessing his 3 yr old sister might have helped but since she was on the ground yelling "momma" I can't blame her...
Anyway, I let it sit a bit thinking it would make the crisps soft but also had some stuff to do. So I guess that was mistake number one. I didn't think it would cause an ammonia spike in 3-4 hrs.
Mistake 2. Didn't buy ammonia lock or prime. Again I didn't think it would create an issue that fast.
Mistake 3. I took out all the decorations and rinsed them because I wanted to be sure food wasn't stuck in the leaves/cracks/insides. Well when I returned them to the tank I decided to redecorate. Fine and dandy except I had some 1-2" mut AC fish that were spawned in the tank and the Oscars had ignored.,... Now they are chasing and I don't expect the babies to make it ins spite of a lot of cover. Somehow I have 6-7 convict babies that are sexually mature now that made it but all the sudden they went on the hunt.
Mistake 4. I noticed "daddy" AC who was 7" and beautiful, gasping at the top but sort of thought he's probably stressed from the huge water change and redecorating. I came back from putting my son to sleep and he was dead.
Ok so onto the issues currently. Any tips for dealing with this? I thought I did a great job removing food, but I have an ammonia spike. My filter seemed to not be cleaning the water after the change and 3-4 hrs later the water still had some debris in it and was cloudy (not food debris more just you know how cloudy it is after a WC). So I discovered "BB" dead, and I ran my ammonia test it is 1.0 or lower. The tank has a "smell" and my nitrates are out of sight. So I took my filter out and rinsed it out, removed the fine pads and rinsed the course pad, didn't touch the bio balls or ceramic rings, didn't even rinse them since I'm a bit worried about the bacteria knowing I have ammonia but the pads were nasty, the flow was slowing and the filter didn't appear to be filtering effectively. (Well water). So far the fish look a bit happier but the firemouths still have clamped fins.
Unless I spend an hour+ in a car (and I have two sleeping kids) I can't get ammonia lock tonight. Any tips on what to do??
Info on my tank:
125 gal, canister filter for 575gph, HOB filter but not currently on. Sand bottom. Houses 2 7" Oscars, 1 3.5" African Cichlid blue and black horizontal stripes, 2 3.5-4" firemouths, 1 9-10" plecco, two mature convicts male is 4-4.5" female around 3, 1 4" blue acara, 5+ juvenile convicts thatbare reaching sexually maturity and did have 3tiny babies and 3 1-2" babies. Oh and a 3" green terror.
I'm guessing his 3 yr old sister might have helped but since she was on the ground yelling "momma" I can't blame her...Anyway, I let it sit a bit thinking it would make the crisps soft but also had some stuff to do. So I guess that was mistake number one. I didn't think it would cause an ammonia spike in 3-4 hrs.
Mistake 2. Didn't buy ammonia lock or prime. Again I didn't think it would create an issue that fast.
Mistake 3. I took out all the decorations and rinsed them because I wanted to be sure food wasn't stuck in the leaves/cracks/insides. Well when I returned them to the tank I decided to redecorate. Fine and dandy except I had some 1-2" mut AC fish that were spawned in the tank and the Oscars had ignored.,... Now they are chasing and I don't expect the babies to make it ins spite of a lot of cover. Somehow I have 6-7 convict babies that are sexually mature now that made it but all the sudden they went on the hunt.
Mistake 4. I noticed "daddy" AC who was 7" and beautiful, gasping at the top but sort of thought he's probably stressed from the huge water change and redecorating. I came back from putting my son to sleep and he was dead.
Ok so onto the issues currently. Any tips for dealing with this? I thought I did a great job removing food, but I have an ammonia spike. My filter seemed to not be cleaning the water after the change and 3-4 hrs later the water still had some debris in it and was cloudy (not food debris more just you know how cloudy it is after a WC). So I discovered "BB" dead, and I ran my ammonia test it is 1.0 or lower. The tank has a "smell" and my nitrates are out of sight. So I took my filter out and rinsed it out, removed the fine pads and rinsed the course pad, didn't touch the bio balls or ceramic rings, didn't even rinse them since I'm a bit worried about the bacteria knowing I have ammonia but the pads were nasty, the flow was slowing and the filter didn't appear to be filtering effectively. (Well water). So far the fish look a bit happier but the firemouths still have clamped fins.
Unless I spend an hour+ in a car (and I have two sleeping kids) I can't get ammonia lock tonight. Any tips on what to do??
Info on my tank:
125 gal, canister filter for 575gph, HOB filter but not currently on. Sand bottom. Houses 2 7" Oscars, 1 3.5" African Cichlid blue and black horizontal stripes, 2 3.5-4" firemouths, 1 9-10" plecco, two mature convicts male is 4-4.5" female around 3, 1 4" blue acara, 5+ juvenile convicts thatbare reaching sexually maturity and did have 3tiny babies and 3 1-2" babies. Oh and a 3" green terror.
