If power is lost up to how long can the bacteria live in filters and on tank surfaces? Or when doing a major water change and filters are shut off for an hour or so is any bacteria lost ? (of any signifagance)
how long can good bacteria live when...
- Thread starter bigtoeknee
- Start date
An hour or few, as long as wet, you won't lose an amount that matters. I am not sure about how long in days though it would survive and location would play into that in regard to it getting food.
I think some people have claimed that some few month old media they have found in their attic or whatever still had some bacteria after being hydrated again. My Bio-Rocker becomes completely dry after my pump shuts off, and when it has restared, my fish are unaffected... but then I have serveral gallons of bio-balls, the denitrator block, and my canister w/ about 40 sq ft of area, so I can't really tell if the bacteria die. Actually when my pump is off, it stays off for a while, for several days sometimes(my pump sucks right now) since I'm too busy to reset the impeller. But when I do reset it, I keep it on for 24 hours.
I would guess if the media stays wet, or better yet moist, then the bacteria could go for days with very little loss.
26 minutes.
Just kidding. There's no set timeline. Bacteria are pretty tough. Generally speaking, if you just keep them moist they could last a day or two. If you're just talking about shutting a filter off but keeping the tank together, I'd say that time limit stretches out considerably.
The bacteria in the tank stay alive because they have food (fish waste) and oxygen (in the water). You'd have to remove one of the two of those or both to kill them off (barring chemicals or some other invader of course) Losing power for even a day probably wouldn't kill of a colony but any loss of filtration beyond that and I would be doing some pretty regular water changes. This would both keep the water clean and oxygenated (both from the fresh water and surface agitation)
Just kidding. There's no set timeline. Bacteria are pretty tough. Generally speaking, if you just keep them moist they could last a day or two. If you're just talking about shutting a filter off but keeping the tank together, I'd say that time limit stretches out considerably. The bacteria in the tank stay alive because they have food (fish waste) and oxygen (in the water). You'd have to remove one of the two of those or both to kill them off (barring chemicals or some other invader of course) Losing power for even a day probably wouldn't kill of a colony but any loss of filtration beyond that and I would be doing some pretty regular water changes. This would both keep the water clean and oxygenated (both from the fresh water and surface agitation)
My mid-cycle (was at the nitrite spike stage) tank w/biowheel filter seemed to do ok after being off for 4 days following hurricane Katrina (put it on a generator once I got home). I think was not seriously affected, because the cycle did not seem to be interrupted, and was completed about 2-3 weeks after.
--Mike
--Mike