I had also posted my plight on my homeschool group list, and my amazing friend Heather was able to give me some advice. She said that, of all the things she'd had dropped in her fish tank, extra food was one of the easiest to deal with. (The worst is potpourri. Crayons are fairly inert, especially if the paper's already been removed...) Another mom told me her children had dropped in an entire bag of algae wafers and she didn't notice until the next day. She compared her tank to Nemo's before the Aquascum 2000!

In case anyone is wondering, I need to do partial water changes (and gravel vacuuming) for the next few days until the water is all cleared up. Also, I shouldn't feed the fish for 3-5 days. Some of the fish might die, but they have a good shot at being OK.

Whew!

So, it's about 12 hours later and they're all swimming perpendicularly to the floor of the tank. And, anyone who's seen enough fish die slowly over a period of time knows that this is a good sign. It looks like the toilet has had his prey snatched out of his grasp for today at least.

I will do another partial water change today and see how they do.