Nitrobactera lifespan

4 days without food.

We pulled a 19" giant gourami from a 125G FW community (yes, they didn't know what they had bought before dumping it in the tank 4 years before this incident, how thoughtful). We brought "Archie" back to the shop, and left the 125G alone. There were maybe 20 fish left in the tank, none were longer than 4". 4 days later, the entire tank crashed because the bacteria's main food source, the giant pig called Archie, had been removed. The dying bacteria were so numerous that it looked like someone had poured a pint of milk in the tank.
 
amosf said:
I guess my point was more about what role the carbon and zeolite played in your comment above. I don't see how these are relivent and really zeolite has no real purpose in a tank filter IMO, and carbon only has specific uses so is only needed now and then.

In any case, O2 is a fairly limmited resource in water and will max out at a mere 8ppm or so in a heated aquarium. In a confined filter with oxidizing reactions taking place (ie NH3->NO2->NO3) the O2 could become scarce over a fairly short time. If you start working out what ammonia might be created by the decay in the media and how many ppm of that there might be and that reacts with how many ppm of O2... Well, you get my drift. Below 2ppm is bad for fish life and no doubt bacteria as well - actually below 4ppm is starting to get bad for fish in warm water...
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First of all, Zeolite and Coal are like sponges. I totally disagree with you that Coal is only needed from time to time. Coal bonds with all sorts of contaminants in water, even aromatic hydrocarbure, metals, etc... It's a part of the filtration system and should be there. Even if some ppl might think that Coal is part of Chemical Filtration, it is not. There is no exchange of ions between coal and other molecules present in water.

Zeolite is a trap. If you could unfold a few "rocks" of Zeolite completely and calculate the surface, it would easily be the size of a bedspread. So there is a lot of stuff that gets trapped in there, including nutrients and ammonia. Of course, that is only true in FW as Zeolite is totally useless in SW.

I agree with you that if the filter is AIR tight, the process of converting ammonia to ammonium would consume O2 and might deprive the enclosure of oxygen with time.

SB
 
My thoughts are that these are indeed both traps and probably separate from any purpose specific biomedia, or even the sponge, so I don't see how they firstly release nutrient or how it would help bacteria all that much in another area of the filter without flow. Also without flow the O2 exchange into the filter is also going to be very sluggish. It will take time to diminish the O2, but seems risky to me. In general - not a good idea to leave the filter off for more than a few hours tops. No reason to do it deliberately at least. Bad enough that it happens during power failures and such...

I'm probably not a good one to talk to about filter noise tho as I like the sound of the filter, esp the way I especially made a nice loud trickle... Very soothing IMO. :)
 
amosf said:
My thoughts are that these are indeed both traps and probably separate from any purpose specific biomedia, or even the sponge, so I don't see how they firstly release nutrient or how it would help bacteria all that much in another area of the filter without flow. Also without flow the O2 exchange into the filter is also going to be very sluggish. It will take time to diminish the O2, but seems risky to me. In general - not a good idea to leave the filter off for more than a few hours tops. No reason to do it deliberately at least. Bad enough that it happens during power failures and such...

I'm probably not a good one to talk to about filter noise tho as I like the sound of the filter, esp the way I especially made a nice loud trickle... Very soothing IMO. :)
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Seems like we disagree on the filter media / bacteria relation in a non-running unit. That's fine.

But I do agree with you that the trickling noise of the water is soothing... forget the stupid table fountain you can buy at Walmart. Get an aquarium !!!

;)
 
In my house, tanks are to be seen and not heard. If I can hear it, I don't use it. Personal choice item.

Coal is not used in tanks AFAIK.

Oxygen is the limiting factor in aerobic bacterial survival. Temperatures and nearby exposed surface area would be defining factors.
 
RTR said:
In my house, tanks are to be seen and not heard. If I can hear it, I don't use it. Personal choice item.
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I must admit that if it was a filter hum or the buzz of an airpump or something I wouldn't want to hear it. But my wife and I like the sound of the trickle of the water. Just a personal preference as you say.
 
Sponge Bob said:
Seems like we disagree on the filter media / bacteria relation in a non-running unit. That's fine.
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Yep, that's okay sponge. I don't mind disagreement. I may be overly cautious with my bacteria and worry over those little guys almost as much as the fish. Part of that is because I experiment with filter systems quite a bit so I get to know what sort of things work and what doesn't and I don't want to risk killing off too many bacteria during the process...
 
fish store is right this time

i agree with the fish store, turning off the filter overnight will kill off filter bacteria. When it is started in the morning, a cloud of toxic wate will spew out of it, how bad depends on how dirty the filter is allowed to get.

The goldfish newsgroup guru says that filter bacteria deaths begin within the hour. I suspect this is due to lack of oxygen, not lack of food. I've read of pond filters that were removed and media dumped on the deck for a day, damp but not submerged, and they were replaced with no hiccup in filtration. So, I think that as long as there is air, the bacteria do OK.
 
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