wtf happend

[duster1971]

i have been treating for ich with temp and salt tech and have had no problems till today i was out of state today till about an hour ago i started lowering my tank temp two days ago and did two twnty five percent water changes and when i left at six this morning water peramiters were good but one of my nephews got in my room and i was told that he dumped alot of fish food in the tank so i heded home and found the tank realy clowdy so i cleand the gravel and it startd to clear up within about ten min so i figured it was all good but the fish started to gasp and loose coler and it clouded up again so i did a 75% whater change and changed filter cartreges and media every thing seems to be fine now water paramiters are ok again amonia as just a tad high but not to bad about .5ppm i just want to know what happend to make this occure and almost kill all my lil fish in my juvi tank

 

[justonemoretank]

How did you "clean" the media? Are the filter cartridges your only media, or do you have bio as well? The food could have caused the Ammonia spike -- how long was it between the time he dumped it in, and the time that you did the big water change? And always keep the food put away, nowhere near the tank, out of sight, if possible. It may take a couple more seconds at feeding time, but it will save you the trouble when someone decides to "help."

 

[kzimmerman]

What happened is the ammonia spike that was caused by the overfeeding became too much for the established biofilter to handle, creating a minicycle. It sounds as if you might need to really thouroughly clean the gravel to make sure there is no leftovers floating around, do a pretty big water change, and hold off on feeding. In an established tank, any ammonia is a sign something is not right. The first thing to do when seeing this is to do a water change. If you cleaned off the filter media and then put it back into the tank with tapwater, theres a chance that the clorine and chloramines in the city water killed off some of your Biofilter. That would just compound things. The fish gasping at the surface is usually a sign of ammonia burn to the gills, it prevents them from uptaking enough oxygen into the bloodstream. Prolonged exposure to this can cause permanant damage.
So the simple solution is to feed lightly, or not at all for a week, and do water changes. the tank will come back around.