I just read this but this is just terrible, heartbreaking to read. I'm very sorry, this is just one of those freak accidents almost like a meteorite hit my tank.
It was very harsh, but things are looking up at least, some of the blind fish are even recovering a bit of their sight too.
But some are still slowly adapting in the meantime.
Oh, I'm so very sorry too, NoodleCats. I don't blame your young son for a devastating mistake, he's a kid that did his best to help your fish. Crap happens...sometimes more often than we can predict...regroup & move on to better tanks...with lots of water changes. Your tanks look good!
No I cant blame him for his intentions, he didn't know he had anything on his hands that would do such damage.
Been slowly but steadily getting better with that tank.
My process was to remove all of the fish to a tote full of fresh new water, a big bag of carbon, and a sponge filter taken from another tank to keep a cycle. One of the melon barbs jumped out of the tote during this process.
Removed all of the plants, put them in a separate tote with a light over them and a big bag of carbon--rinsed them daily.
Tank was drained, all of the hardscape thrown out, all of the old substrate thrown out, the filter thrown out, heater thrown out, filter media thrown out... drained, scrubbed clean, let dry, refilled sat with huge bag of carbon for a week.
After a week, new sand added, new filter, new media, new hardscape. Plants added, carbon sat in it still. Gave the plants a few days to adjust, then slowly added the fish back. Started with the cherry barbs, monitored them, end of day they were okay so added the melon barbs. Monitored. They were okay. Added our pleco. Then added the rest of the fish. Unfortunately the pleco didn't like the change so he jumped out, but no other losses after reintroduction. Replaced the carbon with fresh carbon and sat it in the tank for another week, then moved it to the filter.
Anything with too many nooks and crannies to clean or couldn't be scrubbed, I tossed and replaced to be safe.
Many of the fish are blind, but recovering still.
I lost a total of 8 fish from this incident, and have 15 blinded out of the survivors. But im letting them adapt and trying to help them along where I can. The cories don't seem bothered with the lack of sight, but the cherry barbs struggle, but ive got them finding food and theyre slowly coming around.