Excessive Poo

Question
Ok - I have a fresh water tank - 29 high - in my tank I have (curse me i know not the names)  a bottom feeder fish - he's been with me for almost 5 years and grew from a wee inch to about 8 inches,  i have this "shark"  with googly eyes,  he's been with me for 7 years and is about 7 inches,  a beta, and 2 chilids.  So my tank has been healthy for EVER, recently we aquired a cat (boo!)  the cat got caught fishing in the tank and got pushed in (hee hee)  then the next day the cat managed to push an entire container of fish food into the tank.  Which killed off everyhting except what I listed above.  We are still in recovery period - the water is now clear,  the surviving fish look good and are active.  My questions 1.  I am still cleaning desbris off plants - I have just been shaking one plant a day in the water and letting the filter suck up the grossness.  My partner screams about this - "OMG what are you doing"  - I don't want to take the plants out and put them in regular water and this is working fine.  I wash the filter out a couple of times and then change it.  Is this ok?  I'm not stirring gravel or anything,  just shaking desbris loose into the water and letting it get cleaned up by the filter.  This makes the tank STINK - like nasty wafting odor in the room.  I have changed water, and put in salt, and stress coat, and etc - the fish are fine.  Question 2 - my sucker fish (yes i know he's eating extra) is pooping up a storm - like more poo than the cat.  Piles of poo in the tank - netable poo.  It is utterly amazing how much he is cranking out - but other than that he is acting totally normal.  It's like fish diahreah.  

Answer
Hi Pome
So who pushed the cat in? lol....Lesson learned-do not keep fish food out where other animals can get to it :)  My dog used to knock them off my tanks that were on lower stands, and the idiot would actually eat the food.  Must not have bothered his tummy too much, he kept doing it-yes took me a few times to learn that lesson lol.  

1.  When you do a water change, remove the plants (I know a pain)and wipe them off in the bucket of tank water.  Use a paper towel if you need to or just your hand.  I usually recommend the same thing with the filter, just scrub it with your hand in the bucket of tank water to get the goo off, then reuse it.  Really should only need to replace it every 3 months or so.  You may need to do it sooner because of your accidental food overdose.  Or, you could even just use filter floss-cheaper then filters.  Just shove a wad of it into the filter, and throw it away every 2 months or so.  That's what I do, they sell it by the bag, usually for a couple of dollars.  Lasts forever, and I use it in 7 tanks with multi filters on each.  You need to also be doing good gravel vacuums, stirring up the gravel/substrate.  All that food fell to the bottom, and it settles down in between the rocks and such.  You may not see it, but I guarantee it's there.  You'll see it for sure once you do a gravel vac, and dig down into the gravel.  Can get pretty nasty.  That's probably why it's smelling too.  It's just going to decay and raise your ammonia levels in the tank.  Stay away from the stress coat, doesn't really do much for them anyway, unless that's what you're using for a dechlorinator for new tank water(not sure if it's used for that).  Do a large water change, about 50%, and vac'ing that gravel real good to get the food out.

2.  You hit it right on the head with the sucker fish, he's got all that extra food now!!  What goes in, must come out-isn't that a law of physics or something lol?  Look at it this way, he's decorating teh tank for you :)  Watch the amount of salt your using though, if it's a pleco, they can be a bit sensitive to salt.  Also, you didn't say if it was live plants or the plastic/silk ones, but live plants generally don't care for salt either....You need to figure out what kind of fish those are, I tried looking for a shark with googly eyes that's 7 inches long, I have no clue what you're talking about, just curious lol.   

Thanks for the laugh, you have a good sense of humor.  Good luck with your tank, and let me know if you have any more questions!!

Christy