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within the past 6 hours a chemical plant has exploded near my home and we are evacuating for a week.

is this going to affect my fish in any way or polute my tanks?

depends on what chemicals they were, if they're toxic or if they'll coat the water and prevent air exchange

a few drops of olive oil can kill a tank full of fish

Here is a link to the news article. Mostly chlorine gasses.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/15150819/

Hope this helps with any replies. Good luck to you buddy.

I work for a multi national waste company here in the UK and some of the chemicals that we hold on our sites are potentially very nasty!!!!! Three of our sites are what we call top tier COMAH sites (highest level for holding toxic/flammable/other hazardous materials) and as you would expect we have some very toxic indeed.

It Depends on on what EQ are licenced to hold on their site as to how bad the air quality is in your neighbourhood. However if you say you have been told to evacuate for a week it must be pretty bad All i can say is put carbon in your filters, put a blankett over the top of your tank, close all doors and windows, turn of any air pumps and hope for the best

i would agree with alistair, cover the tank with a damp sheet, turn off your air pumps, put carbon in your filters and adjust your filter so its agitating the water surface, seal the house, doors windows etc and get yourself to safety.
Good luck

Hate to be the bearer of bad news. Just had a look at the site license for EQ in NC, they are licensed to accept and treat a very broad range of waste materials, this includes acids, bases, cyanides, solvents and other organic compounds. If the fire is a big one and you live very close to the site I can understand why you have been told to move out of the area for a week as there could be dioxins, PCB's cyanides etc...... hanging around in the air for quite a while!!!!!!

Good luck and I hope the fish survive.

Al.C

I didnt say we were told to evacuate I said we were evacuating by which i mean we went on vacation a few days early.

we were just outside of the evacuated area and we wernt evacuated because the winds wernt blowing in our direction but thats expected to change later today
also on the news people claimed to have smelled clorine in the air which is why im worried. Mom said it could be hydro cloric acid (did i spell that right?) but i dont know what that is besides that its toxic

It's hydrochloric acid (HCl) and its corrosive not toxic, looking at what waste the site is licensed to accept the fume will contain all sorts of other things as well as HCl acid and Chlorine.

Al.C

The Buddy,

How did you get on with the evacuation? Hope the fish survived.

Al.C