Power Down, Power Down

[Straydum]

Well not exactly a power shortage in my house, its just that my plugs (one that is able to hold about 5 more) is spoiled in 2 sockets so at the moment, 2 of my tanks are off power, not the main one of course. Its the tank with my Angel pair with the spawn and the tank with the juvenile Angel fry.

I was wondering, how long can the bacteria stay alive without water running through them? I'm using an overhead filter btw, and currently the filter sponges are being submerged in tank water.

 

[CFC]

Without a food source and oxygen the bacteria start to die off immiedietly, to start with the dead bacteria will feed some of the remaining bacteria but slowly the colony will die down to nothing as the available oxygen is used up, i dont know of any tests which give conclusive time periods but i would imagine the bacteria in a sponge would be depleted within 24 hours of the power being turned off.

 

[Jules H-T]

I didn't really get what has actually happened, but I'd be running extensions out of extensions coming from plug cube dividers split off another extension from next door rather than have my filter power off.

I'd also give filters preference above lights and TVs and PCs if I wanted to keep the load down. You could even shift the filters into your main tank to slow the die off.

 

[Meds081603]

We had power go out for just under 24 hours during a snow storm. At the time all I had running was a 55 gallon community powered by a magnum 350 pro and a whisper 60. I just floated the biowheels from the magnum and did nothing with the whispers filters. I didnt feed the fish during this time but we never had any issues with our water parameters. Tested water twice during the outage and once afterwards and nothing more than a slightly higher nitrate reading.

 

[Straydum]

thanks for the replies. lucky for me, my dad got the sockets up and running so problem solved. there was a time lag of 3 hours or so though. i tested the water and there wasnt really much of a change in the parameters so all is well