Beneficial Bacteria

[jb1997mcd]

Good morning,

I am sure this topic has been covered at some point. I will be moving over the next month and transporting my filters and tanks to new location. I believe I have read 4-6 hrs is the amount of time the beneficial bacteria can survive in a filter while it is off.

Is this accurate? I have had my power go out before and have hooked filters/heaters up to my generator to ensure no incidents occured.

Secondly, if I transport plants and driftwood from the tank and keep it in tank water during the trip will this make a difference as oppose to potentially letting this stuff dry out, from a bacteria standpoint.

Thanks for your help,
jb

 

[eaglesaquarium]

You may start to get some bacteria die-back after only 4-6 hours, but as long as it stays wet, you should get the vast majority of the bacteria to your new location. The biofilms built up on the plants and wood would be beneficial to keep going by keeping them wet. There's no reason not to try to maintain as much as you can. Placing these into some ziplock-style bags with some tank water would probably work pretty well.

 

[jb1997mcd]

thanks eagle

 

[Tolak]

Your nitrifying bacteria die back at about 10%-12% every 24 hours if kept wet.

 

[eaglesaquarium]

I couldn't remember the rate, so I didn't want to quote numbers. Thanks Tolak!

 

[Bignose]

Yep -- as annoying as the cycling bacteria are being the slowpoke growers of the bacteria world -- doubling every 20-24 hours is very slow compared to most bacteria -- they redeem themselves by also being rather slowly dying. As above, so long as they are kept wet, a good percentage can survive for a fair length of time. Days for sure.