Help! Emergency!

[timmystood]

I've just woken up from a nice long sleep and found that i'd accidentally left my filter off all night (roughly 11 hours) - my tetras are swimming on their sides - almost like they've got new tank syndrome.
Will the filter being off have killed all my friendly bacteria and is there anyhting I can do to help the situation?

 

[Bloo]

It will almost certainly have induced a cycle. To what extent I cannot guess.
Do a 50% water change and get the filter running again.
Monitor water for nitrites and ammonia and do water changes as needed to lower any dangerous levels.

 

[Dangerousdan]

[quote u

 

[timmystood]

Good News!

I've just done a water test and my stats are normal! Ammonia might be slighty up (hard to tell) but not enough to do daily water changes thanks God!

It's a real surprise considering how long the filter was off for!

 

[MsInchworm]

Hi timmystood

There are still probably some beneficial bacteria living in the filter, but it would be a good idea to do a water change anyway. It never hurts and will help get rid of harmful bacteria that might have started reproducing in your tank while the water was still.

 

[rdd1952]

How much bacteria you lost will depend on whether the media stayed wet or not. If you have a canister filter or something with a filter pack that would still be wet, I think your bacteria lose will be minimal. If you have a bio-wheel type filter though where the wheel would have dried out, then you probably lost quite a bit of bacteria. I left the filters (a Whisper 30 and a Whisper 10 - HOB with filter pack) off overnight (about 8 hours) once on my 29 gallon and experienced no mini cycle at all after I plugged them back in. My fish weren't showing any signs of stress that morning. The only reason I noticed they were still off is that the flakes I dropped in that morning lay still since there wasn't any water flow.