Soap in my AIO

[Rubymoon286]

Hello all, we had a break in last night and while nothing was stolen, they put liquid soap in the back of one of my aios. I lost a bangai cardinal, and my two onyx snow clowns were alive but breathing hard, and they are in quarantine right now. I also pulled out the coral that I could, but it was in super rough shape and is also in my coral quarantine again. My rock flowers and BTA were also closed up and pretty angry, and are in qt with the clowns.

We're shaken, I don't know why anyone would put soap in a fish tank, and I'm thankful that they only hit the one tank (we think our dog scared them off before they got farther into the house, but don't know for sure, since the back of the house where they came in is far enough from our bedroom that we don't hear what's going on at night.) The worst part is that our Ring didn't catch them meaning they had to come up through one of the neighbor's yards and then over to us or over the 8ft privacy fence in the back.

That all said, what is the best way to clean my equipment? I have a media basket that I'll be replacing the media in, a skimmer which was overflowing with soap bubbles, an external uv that I've been running to clear up a long lasting bloom, and my return pump. Is soaking and rinsing in RODI enough? Also, will I need to replace my sand and rock? Thank you in advance for advice on this. I'm so thankful I have a place I can come ask about this instead of just trial and error.

 

[Gtinnel]

I can't help with how to properly remove the soap but I just wanted to say I'm sorry this happened. Senseless vandalism is infuriating, but at least it was only vandalism. With someone breaking in to your home I'm sure it could've been much worse.

 

[AZMSGT]

Glad you are ok, scary story, what jerks!

The only way I know to get rid of soap is rinse, rinse, rinse. You’re likely looking at a full tear down. Maybe try to save some bacteria in the rock by rinsing in saltwater. But since soap kills bacteria it‘s gonna be an up hill fight. Running carbon would help get the chemicals out.

If it were me, I would take everything apart, clean and restart. Claim costs on insurance.

 

[Rubymoon286]

Thank y'all - I thankfully have other mature live rock stashed in the sumps of my frag system and my bigger system that can help get the bacteria started again. I am hesitant to reuse the sand, but I don't want to have to ditch all of the rock. I just don't understand the animal cruelty aspect of it, but them walking to the sink to get the soap is likely what alerted my dog to someone being in the back of the house. It's just so surprising because my partner's wallet was on his desk right by the door, and they passed up on it as well as his streaming equipment. It's my honest belief that they were looking for guns in the cars (broken into, but they even left the cash sitting in my partners cup holder, and my rings I'd taken off to do a clients tank and just forgot to put back on) and when they didn't find any, decided to try to come in and cause havoc.

My neighbors across the street are reviewing their cameras this evening after work to let us know if they got any video, and I'm really hoping they did because we plan to press charges if we are able to get an id on them. We did buy a few more cameras, because if they had decided to go into my next door neighbor's house, I can't even imagine what would have happened. She's elderly and lives alone, and I don't imagine she keeps a gun or other self defense tool nearby.

 

[hds4216]

That's such a senseless thing to do. I'm so sorry.

 

[NeonRabbit221B]

What a nightmare! Very sorry that happened to you...

I would ditch the sand as it has too much surface area for the soap to cling to. Infact I would go about a complete tear down and let pumps run for a good 45 minutes flushing out the soap. Honestly this is about to a full restart as one can have.

 

[bungaroo]

What a horrible thing to do. Glad you and everyone else is okay. Give your dog an extra treat for us.

 

[schuby]

@Randy Holmes-Farley , do you have any recommendations on how to remove soap from a tank, without tearing it completely down?

 

[Rubymoon286]

What a horrible thing to do. Glad you and everyone else is okay. Give your dog an extra treat for us.

Always - he's a spoiled old man (he's 11) But still going pretty strong. He's a chow/blue heeler mix, so he sounds like a much bigger dog than he is! He even got a hotdog earlier when we fixed lunch.

As for what I've gotten done so far, I have all the equipment in RODI with the return pump and skimmer both on to move the water through them, and I've dumped and refilled it twice. No more suds finally! I've also siphoned out all of the sand, but haven't gotten after the rock yet.

The fish seem to be doing better now, but still breathing somewhat heavily. The clowns are moving about a bit more, and my rock flowers have opened up. BTA is still closed up, as are the corals, right now it's definitely a wait and see situation I think.

 

[Nick Steele]

I would run all equipment in citric acid or vinegar to help clean them and then do another rinse in rodi.

I’m sorry this happen as it’s scary and uncalled for. I hope you get a chance to ID who it was!

 

[PokeFish]

so sorry