O-Cel-O Sponge massacre

[Smtownfishgrl]

Hey everyone,
while in a rush to get things clean for a party I am having tonight i grabbed a new sponge from under the sink just to get some small patches of algae off of my 55 gallon tank.

I didn't look at the packaging and it says right on the O-cel-o sponge package NOT FOR USE IN AQUARIUMS.

Needles to say, within an hour I've lost 5 fish and my discus are all swimming on their sides.

I did an emergency transfer from my 55 gallon tank to my 10 gallon tank which had my dwarf puffer and banjo cat in it. The 2 fish in the 10 gallon are now in a large bowl.

These are the fish I have left alive at the moment:

1 - Yellow Diamond Discus, adult
1 - Blue Diamond Discus, adult
1 - Yellow/red mix discus (can't remember the name), adult
2 - Mixed breed Discus, both fairly young and small
1 - African Butterfly fish
1 - Syno lace catfish
1 - Ghost knife fish
1 - Snow Pleco

All of these are in a 10 gallon tank. It's too small, but at least I got them out of my 55 gallon.

What should I do? I have no ideas other than to pray I don't lose all of them.

And, how do I clean my 55 gallon? Should I get new rocks/decorations/driftwood/filter/heater?

I've already decided to at least get some new biological filters and start over, but I hate to keep all of those fish in a 10 gallon for too long.

Any advice is greatly appreciated!

[chaoslite]

I am not a pro, but we both know all those fish will not last in the 10g for long. Aerate and water changes on the 10g. If I were you I would rinse the big tank repeatedly wiping it down every time with paper towels. Then I would sterilize it with a bleach solution of 10 to 1 or 20 to 1, 10 or 20 parts water to one of bleach. You can actually sterilize everything from your failed tank with the exception of the gravel. Rinse again repeatedly then fill the tank up and add Prime. Heck I would over Prime. You can add and soak your newly sterilized tank pieces in the tank. If you are running an HOB sterilize it and then let it run the primed water through it. Let that sit for about 20 to 30 minutes. Get new media as you knew you needed to do. Empty the tank an get it as close to the correct temp as possible and start your cycle over. If you can get your hands on Stability that might help you cycle. I hope this helps. Sorry about your lost fish.

Good Luck
Mishka

[joanr]

Did the sponge contain bleach and other cleaning agents? I'd dose the tank with 3x Prime to neutralize what you can. Drain tank and rinse it extremely well several times. It should be ok after that. Your filters are probably toast. If you have some media from the 10 gal, clean/rinse the filters real well and seed the cleaned up filter with it. Buy some SafeStart or other bio in a bottle and do large water changes every day. Get all those fish out of that 10 gal as soon as possible but until you do increase airation and add some aquaria salt to the tank. You do not need to trash the heater, rinse it extremely well. Hope you can save some of them!

[Smtownfishgrl]

The sponge package has no ingredients listed. It just says that the sponges kill bacteria. I wish I knew the chemical used because I have 2 cats and a dog living in my house. Needless to say the rest of the sponges have been tossed.

$2.06 sponge = over $400 worth of live fish/equipment lost. Having just graduated college, it's a hard thing to have happen.

All but the ABF, knife, and one discus have passed away and I don't think the last one is going to make it. The African Butterfly fish acts as though nothing happened, and the knife fish still has some energy.
So, the plan is to scrub, rinse, rinse, rinse... Repeat, and maybe rinse again starting tomorrow. I will toss the driftwood and gravel. I prefer to cycle the tank with fish, so it will be a while before I can get my 55g up and running again.


I am worried that my ghost knife, african butterfly, and remaining discus is still major tank overload for a 10 gallon. Water changes everyother day? I also have my dwarf puffer and banjo cat to worry about. They are currently in a large salad bowl together with no airation/filtration, but they are the cheapest fish I have, so trying to save the rest first.

Just to be safe I am going to start over completely with my 55g tank. New bio filter, gravel, and driftwood. Keeping the giant moss ball and bamboo I had in it.

Advice is greatly appreciated again. I am a new fish owner (only had this 55g a year) so am not fully schooled on sick fish protocols.

Thanks, the two previous posts were very helpful.
-Sad smtownfishgrl

[chaoslite]

Smtownfishgrl I found something on another site.

http://www.aquaticplantcentral.com/forumapc/equipment/70393-scotch-brite-not-aquarium.html

Quote:
The humectant (moisturizing agent), Magnesium chloride, found in both Scotch-Brite(TM) and O-Cel-O(TM) sponges and the anti-bacterial agent, Zinc pyrithione, are poisonous to fish. All packages provide warning: "Not for aquarium use."

Not that it is much help now, but it does tell you what the chemicals are.

I am sorry for your loss. Hope the rest make it.

Mishka

[Pardal]

See if you can afford buy a new tank, at least a 29 gal, bigger the better, you eventually will need it anyway for various uses like quarentine, sick fish or even grow out.or if not a couple of 5gal plastic pail like those from home improvement store. keep your five Discus together, and spread the others.
Bleach and rinse your tank as many times as possible, I will rub with table salt or Bakin Soda between rinses and bleach outs.
I will save the prime or anyother declorinator for the final fill of the tank.
Do daily WC in your fish wherever you have them, and add stress Zyme or anyother colonize bacteria additive. There is a new type like Dr Tims A Hovanec and other biospyra that it comes refrigerated . These two claim instantly creation of the bio-filter eliminating the new tank sindrome.
GL

[nc0gnet0]

Ok, whats up with all the bleach suggestions? Bleach works great at killing bacteria. It won't do a thing to strip the chemicals left behind from the sponge. Rinse, Rinse, and rinse again. Wiping with distilled water would help.

[joanr]

Ok, whats up with all the bleach suggestions? Bleach works great at killing bacteria. It won't do a thing to strip the chemicals left behind from the sponge. Rinse, Rinse, and rinse again. Wiping with distilled water would help.

+1 with this, no bleaching is necessary, you have enough chemicals to neutralilze as it is. One way would be to thoroughly rinse the tank several times and fill with clean water and run a cleaned filter packed with carbon to help remove any remaining agents. Wow, I use these o-cello sponges all the time, just the small three pack for the kitchen sink, never realized they had additives in them. I wash my cat bowls with them and also stuff I don't put in the dishwasher. Were these just their regular sponges?

[Smtownfishgrl]

The African Butterfly and Ghost Knife Fish are the only ones alive. This happend so FAST! I didn't even do a complete scrub down of the tank, just the noticable stuff. Within 20 minutes, my 4 small chiclids had dropped like flies and 1 of my queen loaches was dead. I thought maybe I shocked them with too hot/cold water when I re-filled the tank, but the temperature stayed the same. The only thing I did different was use the dang sponge.
Leason learned. It will be a depressing couple of weeks with a bare fish tank, but I already have new plans for the layout of the tank.
Thanks for all of the help!

[joanr]

Wow, so sorry to hear they all passed. But I'm thankful you posted your experience with these sponges, maybe prevent future mishaps like this. I think they should put a much larger print warning on those sponges, who reads the fine print? Or at my age can ever see it?

[Pardal]

Ok, whats up with all the bleach suggestions? Bleach works great at killing bacteria. It won't do a thing to strip the chemicals left behind from the sponge. Rinse, Rinse, and rinse again. Wiping with distilled water would help.

Bleach, will strip the soap or detergent type that comes in this pre-prepare sponges, notice I also recomend , used Baking soda and/or salt this will neutralized anything left behind . and of course a lot of rinse and good brand dechlorinator.

[underwaterforest]

First let me say I'm so sorry for your loss it seems like a nightmare you went through. I would have never guessed that ocelo sponges would be soaked in such a toxic mess. I appreciate you telling all of us about your experience since you probably stopped lots of us from making the same mistake. I know it is very non environmentally friendly of me but I use paper towels all the time to wipe down my tank and routine cleanings and I have never had any problems with them.

Alex

[babakaty]

I too am sorry for the loss of your fish. With the current craze to kill every germ out there with antibacterial soaps, wipes, etc. it's a good lesson to us all about being careful to use only aquarium-friendly stuff to build/clean/maintain our tanks. Thanks for sharing; believe me, we've almost all done something similarly thoughtless at one time or another.

[kaceyo]

I'd like to back up those telling you not to use bleach. It is probably not an issue now as your last two fish should be OK in a ten for long enough to deal with the issue..
Rinsing the tank thoroghly with water after after emptying it, then refilling with fresh clean water should be good enough.
The sponges are no threat to your cats or dog and there is no need to throw out the other sponges. All household cleaning sponges have the same antibacterial chemicals.
This happened a few years ago to someone on the forum, only that time it was the fish owners wife who had used the sponge to surprise her husband with a clean tank when he got home.
Very sorry too hear it's happened again.

[Darrell Ward]

Don't use sponges at all! They can absorb just about anything, and you really don't know for sure what they have absorbed before you got them. Get yourself a Mag Float, and some good old plain paper towels. You'll never have to worry again. :D