View Full Version : Biofilter down
When I feed this morning I noticed my canister biofilter was making a funny noise, I opened up the cabinet and realized it had lost its prime, I stuck my hand in the water and there was no water flow. I think my prefilter on the intake was to clogged. I know it was running on Sunday because I changed the water. Could my bacteria colony have died off without the water flow?
I tested and ammonia and nitrites are zero.
I ran this canister on an established tank for about five weeks before I hooked it up to the new tank, the new tank has never regisered ammonia or nitrites. Thanks.
famman
07-01-2003, 9:14 AM
If the canister was established, one night without water wont kill off the bacteria.
good luck
:)
wetmanNY
07-01-2003, 9:17 AM
I figure you've already rinsed the filter in siphoned-off tank water and re-started it.
My expectation is that there won't be a problem at all. Heat (but what? over 120oF?) and drying out would kill the nitrifiers. But bacteria live at the edge of starvation always: a Malthusian population.
Give us your N-test results the next few days, will you? It's worth seeing.
Sould be 0 NH, 0 NO2, 0 NO3 as always...
Cloud-9
07-01-2003, 10:04 AM
Why not open the filter and see if it gives off that rotten smell. I don't know how to explain the smell, but I think you know what I mean. Sort of like a rotten egg smell. But actually, any kind of unusual odor would be suspect. If such an odor is present, then I would probably clean out the filter and start all over again. You never know what kind of toxins are in there. I'm no biologists though.
scott
07-01-2003, 12:32 PM
I did open up the canister and it smelled fine and the water was clear, no floaters or anything. However I did not rinse it before restarting as there was no odor, is that a problem? I guess I was also worried about the canister being an anaerobic environment and thus killing aerobic bacteria, in addition to the lack of food. Would this not have an effect? I will definately keep testing the N's.
Cloud-9
07-01-2003, 4:41 PM
Well, if you've already restarted it and there's no problem yet, it is probably just fine. I was just thinking of toxins.
Anyway, some of your bacteria probably died off but perhaps you have enough left in there to do the job.