ghostdart

hi all

please help

my thermometor for my fish tank was full of water (not sure how long for) i had 2 pregnant guppies in the tank (thermometor in to keep chek on temp) in the last 24 hours they have both died and tonight i noticed that the thermometor was broken and am wondering if this could be the reason they died?

they had been fine up til then and i really wonder if this could have been the answer.

do thermometors have still have mercury in them

how do i clean my tank to make sure no contaminant remains

Butterfly

Was there water inside the thermometer or was it broken to pieces? I think the thermometer was probably safe. What are the ammonia, nitrite and nitrate readings.
Carol

ghostdart

water was in the thermometor - but the tank is 18" long and about 6" wide and they were both in seperate net breader tanks close to the thermometer.

if i use hot water, vinegar and lots of hotwater to rinse would this be ok to clean so no more contaminants

tam

Butterfly

Since the thermometer wasn't shattered I think it's probably ok. If you clean your tank in this manner you will have to cycle the tank again.
Did you check the water parameters?
carol

COBettaCouple

i'm not sure what's in the thermometers now, we have 1 of them as a 2nd thermometer but really just use the removable strip thermometers. I'd say the chance of that killing the guppies would be small, but can't be ruled out since they were close & both died in that short of a time frame. Another possibility may be whatever caused the thermometer to crack was what got the gups. the water chemistry readings might shed some light on it.

if you clean your tank, remember to put the substrata and filter sponge in a bucket of clean treated tap water so you can get the tank back to cycled after the cleaning.. i'd also run the tank with A/C in the filter for a month - either changed weekly or use the Marineland brand black diamond carbon.. if there's anything on the sponge or substrata, that should help ensure that your tank is free of contaminants. Honestly, i think you could just run carbon for a month and be ok, there probably was very little leakage from the thermometer and a partial water change followed by A/C should be enough to clean out the water without having to go through a full tank cleaning.