Some bacteria will be alive--the ammonia amount will be reduce,d, but not eliminated, since it has other sources: decaying food and plant matter, as well as decaying fish waste still in the system. I'd feed the tank with a bit of food each day--less than if you had fish, but just a few flakes will be enough to keep the bacteria going.
Storing Biological Media and Rock
- Thread starter Cribbinator
- Start date
Thanks. What if I can't get my hands on some ammonia, could I just put a small amount of flakes in the rock and water mixture to keep it going ? Overall it will be about 2 weeks before the tank and traveling water/rock mixture will be back in the tank and running; will that be ok ?
James
James
Forget the rocks.
Do as OG suggested while the tank is still up and running. When you're tearing it down for the move, do a really thorough gravel vacuuming. Let the mulm settle and decant the surface water. Bag the mulm and filter media, maybe add a few flakes of fish food for some fresh ammonia. Top up with extra water to about 1/3-1/2 the bag. It'll probably look pretty gross.
Then, as mooman suggested, put the bags in a cooler with a little ice to keep them cool but not cold and maybe let in some fresh air, but I doubt that the bacteria will deplete the O2 in 3 days, but hey, it couldn't hurt right? You should be fine.
The rocks, substrate, decor you can let dry. You may want to clean them a bit while they're still wet though, because it can be a pain after they dry.
Once you get to the new place you've got the mulm which is teeming with heterotrophs (break down food and waste) and the sponges for the nitrifiers. That's pretty much all you can do.
After you set it up, add enough ammonia to raise the tank NH3 concentration to 5 ppm. Test NH3, NO2, and NO3 24 hrs. later. If all went well all the ammonia should have been converted to roughly 20 ppm NO3. The worst case scenario is that you lose some of the colony, but still have a good seed colony to build from.
Do as OG suggested while the tank is still up and running. When you're tearing it down for the move, do a really thorough gravel vacuuming. Let the mulm settle and decant the surface water. Bag the mulm and filter media, maybe add a few flakes of fish food for some fresh ammonia. Top up with extra water to about 1/3-1/2 the bag. It'll probably look pretty gross.
Then, as mooman suggested, put the bags in a cooler with a little ice to keep them cool but not cold and maybe let in some fresh air, but I doubt that the bacteria will deplete the O2 in 3 days, but hey, it couldn't hurt right? You should be fine.
The rocks, substrate, decor you can let dry. You may want to clean them a bit while they're still wet though, because it can be a pain after they dry.
Once you get to the new place you've got the mulm which is teeming with heterotrophs (break down food and waste) and the sponges for the nitrifiers. That's pretty much all you can do.
After you set it up, add enough ammonia to raise the tank NH3 concentration to 5 ppm. Test NH3, NO2, and NO3 24 hrs. later. If all went well all the ammonia should have been converted to roughly 20 ppm NO3. The worst case scenario is that you lose some of the colony, but still have a good seed colony to build from.
Good point happy chem. No need to keep the bacteria on the rocks or even the gravel. Just keep the filter media wet and cool and you should be fine. Especially since you will be able to add new fish a few at a time once you get the tank set up at new location. As for adding flakes to feed bacteria, think of your tank as a closed system. You add food, fish/microorganisms break down food into ammonia to feed your bacteria. The bacteria don't give a flying fission whether the ammonia was excreted by a fish or by the millions of decomposers that inhabit your tank's water.
