Wet/Dry Filter for 180 creating FOAM?!

  • We are currently upgrading MFK. thanks! -neo
CrystaliZed;5123271; said:
Just found out the bf accidentially cleaned the tank w/ windex and glass cleaner - which obviously HAS ammonia... Ugh... So what now? ...and water change? A couple fish places said w/ ammonia at 2.0 it'd take about 10-14 days to cycle this crap out so i've also upped the stability and prime dosage.
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You need to empty the tank, rinse very well, and completely restart...Windex contains rubbing alcohol, perfumes, glycol, and other chemicals that can harm your fish and prevent the cycle from happening in the first place. If he used the foaming stuff too, there's no telling what all it had in it. Your biological medium is 99% likely to be dead as well. Good luck.
 
Wow... Ugh... I'm so frustrated but thanks for the input... I'll see what we can do here over the next few hours... He was uder the assumption that he rinsed it well enuf and it was never foamy on tank fill , only when we started the filter...
 
Also... B4 we used the tank chemicals, we had it about 50% full to rinse it and then drained it empty before we totally filled it a 2nd time. Their was no foam build up in the entire tank as we filled it nor when it was full. Only after about 2-3 hrs of the filter cycling... So that makes things confusing as well...
 
depending upon your test kit, using prime will give a false positive reading .
Get the seachem amm test kit when using prime..

Also GE silicone II; I heard was not supposed to be used in aquariums only GE silicone 1... GE II has a mildew retardant , which I believe is arsenic?
 
I've done some internet search for the Silicone II and it hasn't gotten too bad of a response from other aquarium users As far as being toxic, so I'm not sure now on what to do...
 
I'm guessing this entire project is scrapped b/c the water is extremely cloudy and we can't get the foam to go down at all... I really don't know where to go from here. We're pretty sure it's this Silicone II product...
 
So I guess what we're doing here is completely emptying the tank... we gonna cycle through water again and help clean thru the filter & the crap in the tank... we're honestly not sure if it's the silicone II or the paint we used...

I have been to about 8-10 other fish forums & websites that are all giving silicone II both a 50/50 good & bad review for aquarium use...

I have also emailed the company for the paint we used specifically asking questions about it for aquarium use...

I'm at a big toss up b/c honestly the silicone II seems to be the major issue... in a couple areas it was leaking off a "smoke" look into the water, yet other forums have said the use of it has been ok for aquarium use. Basically we don't wanna have to remove & rebuild this entire thing... After we clean through the tank some... we're gonna basically give the silicone another couple of days to sit & try this again b4 buying & wasting chemicals for the water again... The ammonia was still at 2.0 b4 emptying so obviously the Prime & Stability w/ ammonia remover wasn't doing anything to help... that kind of pinpoints the silicone II being an issue as we've used a lot of it... we're hoping it cures better over the next couple of days...

Any other ideas or help would be appreciated... Thanks everyone for your input...
 
Wow you have lots of different chemicals in that water from windex to products that we do not even know are safe to use in aquariums . My advice would be to drain and refill and drain again then use polfilterTM to remove any residuals w Carbon, Then proceed slow and you should be okay. best of luck.
 
Alright... thanks jft for the input... what exactly is "polfilterTM" - I tried googling it & no luck...

- - - Here's where we're at w/ everything:

We drained the tank completely & did 2 more 50% fills hoping to clear out some of the residue... we have about 2-3 inches of water still sitting in the bottom that we plan on wet vac-ing out as much as we can...

Afterwards, we completely tore down the rock wall from the back of the tank & discovered the Silicone II did NOT fully cure... even after a couple days... I looked on the back of the container & no where did it state "not used for aquariums" & it also stated it would fully cure with 24 hrs for water use, which it didn't do. Maybe we got a bad batch of silicone... not sure. So...

We completely pulled all the created polystyrene "rocks" off of each of the middle & 2 side back pannels & then discovered a lot of the Silicone II hadn't fully cured on these items as well, and this part had been done around a week or 10 days ago... as we pulled apart each of the little rock sections we discovered that the paint hadn't even fully cured in the areas that we really hidden. The paint had also been done about a week ago as well... right now about 60-70 pieces of rock wall are sitting separated in the garage, drying. Also, we peeled off ALL of the Silicone II from each of these rock wall pieces.

We plan on piecing & resetting all of it in the next day or two while all of this currently dries. Right now I'm waiting to hear back from the paint company we used and plan on making phone calls tomorrow for a back-up plan in case this paint isn't good for this use...

We're about 90% sure it's the Silicone II as when the water had fully immersed into a heavy area of silicone, we seen a "smoke trail" dissipate into the water from it. We never seen any residue from the paint coming into the water, but of course after we pulled apart the rock wall and found out areas were still wet, this would've definitely been an issue down the road as far as leaking into the water... We plan on picking up 3-4 tubes of actual AQUARIUM SILICONE tomorrow... I've also discovered this "Aquarium Silicone 333" which is maybe what's at the fish stores, but that's what I'll be buying from here out. Surprisingly, pulling apart the rock wall only took about 30-40 minutes & wasn't too much of a hassle... Ugh... total lesson learned...

Will let everyone know how things go when we refill & check out water readings then...
 
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