hssea

just right now i was doing water change with my vaccuum and trying to move the thermometer at the same time. the thermometer hit the side of the tank and broke and then during the panic a vaccuumed up a barb. He didnt go through the narrow tube but is breathing rapidly. THe thermometer tip broke off and some of the little stones (im assuming to weight it down) went into the gravel, the tube containing the mercury did not break. I found only a piece of the glass and compared with the therm. still half the tip is missing. it might have gotten buried trying to get the other piece. i vacuumed the area hoping it would pick up the little "balls" but it wont. What should i do now, no way to get all those little balls out the blend to well with my gravel. what about the remaining glass do you think my vacuum got any tiny pieces

i scooped out the gravel in that area, still can't find anymore glass. did pull out about 20 of the little balls. Question -should i just throw away that gravel ? are those balls harmful to the fish ?

capekate

Hello Hssea
I hope that you unpluged the heater before getting your hands in the tank! One has to be so careful when dealing with a broken glass heater. What is your name brand on that heater? As far as the little balls in the heater, I thought those were mercury, but maybe not? Unless they are a heat regulator. Its a scary thought to know that there is glass left in the tank and so very harmful for you fish. There just is no protection against an accident involving rubbing up against a piece of glass stuck in the gravel. It looks as tho there is no way around a total clean out of the gravel. Some pieces of glass are just too heavy for our siphons. If it were my tank, I would be moving the fish somewhere safe and start removing everything in the tank. Keep your decorations and plants in tank water so as not to kill off any beneficial bacteria. I would take out the gravel and run it through a wire netted strainer.
You must be very careful not to cut your fingers when doing this.
I also have two glass heaters along with my newer visa-therms that I will be replacing over time myself. Its a real shame when this happens.

~ kate

luna

I don't know what those balls are made out of...but if they're lead, they NEED to come out. Lead is typically used in small metal pellets for weighing things down, though I would like to think they wouldn't put a toxic metal in something that goes in water with living things. I'd get them out just to be safe.

Do you have a quarantine tank or something you can move your fish into so you can clean that stuff out thoroughly?

hssea

it was my thermometer that broke . the balls are from the tip area (used for weighing down the thermometer. i scooped up the gravel in the area and went through it found no glass and pulled about 30 of the little balls out. im sure no glass in the gravel i scoop can i return gravel to tank if not sure if a got all the balls out

luna

Not heater, she broke her thermometer...silly Kate!

The glass warning is still valid, though.

capekate

OOOOOhhhhh jeeesh! lol..... I am soooo tired this am. Didnt get much sleep last nite, may be time for a nappy-po! haha...
OK... ignore this (me) poster on this subject! lol..

~ kate

hssea

thanks for responding . it was actually my thermometer that broke. i only have another 2.5 gallon tank. im receiving a 20 gallon but don't have it yet

capekate

HI Hssea...
lol.. I found that out when I went to the other post ... jeesh... my bad!

~ kate

hssea

thats ok . please ignore my last post(under general discussion) it was a little tricky. i guess i was a little impatient to get someone to reply. how do i delete that new thread

sirdarksol

I'll see if I can combine them (good practice for me)

Otherwise, if nobody has responded, you can usually just click on the "edit" button and then choose the "delete" option.

Edit: Done and Done.
I deleted a few extraneous messages that had no actual "meat" to them.

Drea

so if a message isn't meaty....it is cause to be deleted?

capekate

Its possible that he did that because he was merging the threads. But I agree, IMO we should not delete posts because they are not 'meaty'.

~ ka te

sirdarksol

You're right. They were posts that had to do with the fact that there were two threads, so they had absolutely no bearing at all once I merged the threads. Aside from that, there were duplicates of posts due to the fact that I was merging two threads. I wouldn't delete a pointless post unless there was some other reason to do so, as well.

COBettaCouple

Hmm.. my post got lost in the merge.

I'd 2nd Kate's advice to empty the tank and clean things out. The fish could eat the little pieces of glass or the little balls possibly.

sirdarksol

Sorry. I didn't think I had deleted any of your posts. I wonder if you were posting while I was merging them. Otherwise, I might have just accidentally selected a message of yours.

Sorry again. It was my first merged post.

Please don't make me eat fish food again.

Tavel

I'm betting the weights are made of steel. You can easily test it though, put one on the bench and hit it with hammer. If it goes flat, it's lead; it it stays relatively round, it's made of steel.

Thermometers don't contain mercury, just alcohol. And short thermometers contain an incredibly small amount, like 1ml or something so theres really no harm done if it breaks.

You'll honestly never get all of those glass pieces out. I broke a glass on my carpet and I'm still finding little shards months later...usually "finding" means pulling them out of my skin after doing sit-ups or something.

Better to just replace the gravel.

sirdarksol

The problem in aquariums is that they are closed systems, and the alcohol in a thermometer is extremely toxic, so it's not something you'd want to play with. If the inner thermometer breaks, it's best to do a massive water change and put some fresh AC in the filter.

I get what you mean about finding glass later. My wife broke a crystal bowl and then, months later, got a shard of it stuck in her foot. This happens every time she breaks something made of glass.

miker