So, while I was at work on Friday, my wonderful husband failed to keep an eye on our daughter since she was home from daycare with pink eye, and she managed to dump a FULL 20oz bottle of chocalate milk into the 10 gallon holding tank for my crawdads.
I had some regular crawdad babies growing out in there and my marbled cray was in there because she was heavily berried. So, I saved all that I could find (found 1 dead baby but I know that I am missing a few others) and completely draind the tank and rinsed it out as well as I could. I filled it with water from the 125 (which is the water I have always filled it with, so nothing new there) and put them all back in the tank. I do partial water changes every couple of days. Yet the water is still cloudy, and looks like it still has some milk in it (just not as much). I have not seen any babies in there since Sunday, but I also did add some fake grass in there for the babies to hide in too, so I am sure they are in there, and my marbled is doing well, tending to her developing eggs. Any idea on what I should do? I use the water from the 125 because that is the tank the marbled is normally in (all three adult crays are in there), she is only in the 10 because she is berried, and I also use the 125 water because I can get away with a 75% water change and not have to worry about shocking them to much or having to cycle the tank.

Keep an eye on the water parameters and do daily water changes of 50 to 75% (using water from the cycled tank). As long as the water parameters are good and the crays are healthy, there's not much else you can do without doing another drain and clean, and essentially giving all the crays a bath.

Part of the cloudiness may be from milk that was stuck to the crays shells. With all the crevices they have, it may leach for a few days.

Just watch for any spike in the parameters. If the cloudiness is caused by milk, the protiens and/or enzymes may cause a spike in nitrate, nitrite, or ammonia without affecting anything else first.

Good luck and keep us posted.

My daughter did the same thing to a 10 gal guppy tank. I did three 90% water changes back to back. Kinda figured I would lose everything, but everything pulled through. The tank was cloudy for a few days though. I would just continue to do water changes everyday for a weel or so or until it clears up.

thank you! I had my husband do a 50% water change when it happened. Then when I got home is when I did the 100% water change. I was shocked to have only found 1 dead because I didnt get home till 4 hrs after it happened!

Thank you Unknown, milk being trapped in the crevises does make sense. None of the old (chocalate milk) water made it back into the tank, so it would have to have crome from on the crays shells.

Thank you MarkM for sharing your "milk" experience, at least now I know there is a chance I can still save them and my efforts are not futile.

ive seen crays thrive in sewer drainage ditches. im not surprised your crays survived that fiasco, tough little buggers. although a friend once shared a dog turd in a cray tank story once...

also i noticed you got marmokrebs (i really dont want regular crays), if supplied with shipping mats and $. could i have some of your choco-covered crustaceans? ive been looking high and low for some cheap ones to create a colony to use as feeders.