My kids fed fish Too much food

You all helped me get my tank cycled, and I added fish, and things have been going great. I taught my kids how much to feed the fish, and I have been keeping an eye on things. However, I ended up with a concussion and I could barely function and I was letting my kids feed the fish on their own. My oldest was overfeeding, and not until her sister was fussing at her not to feed so much did I look at the tank well. It's full of uneaten food. I did a 50% water change with gravel vacuum and cleaned off the decorations. I haven't tested water chemistry yet because I figure it's not good. I also rinsed the filter. Anything else to do?

 

the 50% water change and getting the extra food out was a great idea. I would suggest testing ammonia\nitrite\nitrate just to know what the numbers are. Then you can proceed with any next steps. If your nitrates are high, you should do another 50% water change and keep that up until you are at like 20ppm or less.

 

Thank you! I checked my chemistry post water change and it's perfect!

 

Seachem - Pristine

Can help *some* with stuff that's sunk into the substrate if you see sludge down there, especially if you don't want to super aggressively vacuum.

 

I suggest to consider doing another thorough vac of the substrate in a couple of days along with a large WC, especially if you have gravel.

Any uneaten food that wasn't removed and made its way into the substrate will start to decompose.

Also consider getting a plastic weekly pill organizer that has a flip top lid for every day of the week, possibly the AM/PM type.

That way the food can be portioned out for each day of the week.

Think about selecting a day to skip a feeding. Many fish keepers skip one day a week for feeding.

 

I suggest you use the 5 or 10 minutes it takes to test water and wait for a result to do more water changes. It will do no harm to vacuum the gravel in an established tank. Vacuuming the gravel every few days or even every day is needed . Then you can waste your valuable test kit chemicals of test what was a tank full of food.

My wife like to use a plastic airline spoon as a measuring device.

But a pill box organiser may work better if multiply people are wanting to feed?