How Long Can Bactirea Survive Withought The Ammonia?

[Johnlenham]

Ok so im wondering how long can the filter bacteria go without "food" ie ammonia/nitrate?

Im going to need to put down my only inhabitants of my 15gal (full cycled,dieing for other reasons) and am unable to get any new fish for the tank until Saturday.

Now will the filter media survive until then? I have no ammonia to hand to keep it topped up so im in abit of a rock/hard place situation

 

[MHunt]

Keep it running and you have a better chance, if the filter stops the bacteria starts to die off within hours. If you can get some ammonia to dose the tank with till you get your fish then all the better. Otherwise just keep the filter running and restock nice and slowly, almost like you're starting again and do water tests to make sure you're not getting a mini cycle as a result. Do you have to euthanise today? could it wait till Friday? Not an easy question when you have a suffering fish, but it would make you're transition easier if you can leave it a day or two.

What's the fish dying of btw?

 

[doresy]

Stick a prawn (the frozen type!) in there and it'll soon make as much bioload as 1 fish

 

[Johnlenham]

Keep it running and you have a better chance, if the filter stops the bacteria starts to die off within hours. If you can get some ammonia to dose the tank with till you get your fish then all the better. Otherwise just keep the filter running and restock nice and slowly, almost like you're starting again and do water tests to make sure you're not getting a mini cycle as a result. Do you have to euthanise today? could it wait till Friday? Not an easy question when you have a suffering fish, but it would make you're transition easier if you can leave it a day or two.

What's the fish dying of btw?

The goldfish to be honest im not sure what it is.
I have a thread in the cold water section where it started.
It seemed like possible fin rot, I left it for a day. Wake up the following morning and half his tail is missing!

It was suggested that it was to fast for fin rot so maybe bordem?

few days later he moved into my cycled 15gal, added melafix and he improved, all the redness in the tail fin was gone. happy and normal.

This Saturday i had to go away till today so i explained to family how to look after him (not alot to do really)

ive come home to find his top fin is all but gone, his bottom is almost gone,his dorsal is bright red, I -think- one of his gills has a lump, theres a white ring around the later part of his body and I found him laying on the filter out flow tube.

I honestly cant seem him making it and it pains me to even see him like this
Thankfully I have some pure clove oil so it will be a painless sleep..

The only other fish I have is a male betta i could move into it but it will take awhiel for the water to get hotter and I need to find a way to lower the current for him.

 

[andywg]

The death rate of the ammonia oxidising and nitrite oxidising bacteria is somewhat slow with mortality rates between 4 and 12% per 24 hours without any supply of ammonia.

You can either go for a lower stocking (building it back up slowly) or just throw in a prawn as mentioned above.

 

[MHunt]

That's quite a severe bacterial infection, it sounds too aggressive to be treatable. Possibly too late now but have you mentioned it on the tropical fish emergencies. I have used treatments like myxazyn and melafix with some success in the past. It just depends on what you can get hold of.

On that note, if it is bacterial, you perhaps could do with leaving the tank dormant for a little while, or perhaps even clean it out and start again to be sure there isn't anything that could pass to your new fish. Perhaps a little overboard by some peoples opinions, but better to be safe than sorry in my opinion.

 

[rdd1952]

If you have a disease in the tank that is killing your fish, you most likey need to trat the tank before adding mew fish. Otherwise, you could end up with the same problem with the new fish. I'm not sure about bacterial problems but with diseases like white spot, adding new fish 3 or 4 days after the last ones died or were euthanized would only lead to another outbreak as the problem is still present.

As Andy mentioned, nitrifying bacteria are slow to die off so you aren't talking about a major issue without ammonia. There are options as mentioned with the prawns. You can also just put some fish flakes or other food in the tank to break down and create ammonia.

On other comment about the bacteria is that there will only be enough bacteria in the tank to handle the bio-load of the fish present. So if you only have a couple fish left, the bacteria colony is relatively small so you need to restock slowly or you will still run into issues with ammonia and nitrite. In other words, if you only have 3 fish left, don't go out and buy 20 fish to completely restock the tank as you don't have the bacteria to handle their waste load.

 

[Johnlenham]

Trat the tank?

Bio load wise the only fish in there as a 4" goldfish, I was under the impression that they are large waste producers so I planned to add stock bit by bit
Say Saturday 4-6 Corys then maybe 6 tetras or something a month down the line rather than a full restock.

Thanks for the responses so far.

I think it is bad fin rot as I managed to get a real close up view and the white mark I spoke of is where a portion of scales are missing on his rear left just before the tail from the Right he looks fine other than a stubby tail fin but the left is ragged at the back Ive dossed with Melafake and one a 30% change ad will see what happens, He defiantly perked up though.

If it does get worse and I need to put him down I assume I should take out the filter media and place it in tank water, take out the plants/ornaments and clean up the sand (boiling water or something?) to get rid of any bacteria that may be lurking?

 

[rdd1952]

There could be bacteria on anything in the tank so even the plants and filter could have potential bad bacteria on them. THe only way to be sure that the tank is safe again is clean everything and start anew. Of course, that means having to cycle again. You could try treating the tank with a bacterial medication also but I don't know how much good that would do. it would possibly kill the beneficial bacteria too.

As far as the bio-load is concerned, goldfish are big waste producers but I don't know if they produce as much as 4 corys or not. Probably 1 4" goldie is equivalent or even heavier than 4 1" corys so you would probably be fine there.

 

[Johnlenham]

R.I.P Fishly

I tried to get him to perk up today but I think it had gone on long enough, He was in a bad way all day and eventually doggy paddled his way to the bottom and laid amongst some plants, only breathing, wouldnt move for food and I felt cruel seeing him like that.

Used a lethal overdose of Clove oil (put him to sleep first) No gill movement for 2mins the whole process to about 2 hours and he went peacefully and painlessly (I hope)

Feel pretty bad though as he was a fair/carnival goldy so hes had a rough life, im surprised his lasted so long though as most of the other ones people got didn't last a week

Rip Fishly

 

[backtotropical]