Unfortunate Circumstance. Need Advice

[mb629]

I live in university dorms and am leaving for the holiday break this Monday. My suitemates and I invested in a 10 gallon fish tank which, aside from an initial mishap, has housed five healthy fish for two and a half months. With the upcoming break we are required to remove the fish. I own a 15 gallon tank at home which has more than enough room for our fish.

However the issue here is that the university has just informed us that power will be turned off for as much as five days. What should I do about this? Is it in my best interest to empty the tank as algae will likely bloom after five days of water rest? Or would it be more beneficial to keep it and deal with the algae when we return in twenty days. Is there anything I can do to prevent all my beneficial bacteria from dying out and making the cycling restart?

 

[PrairieSunflower]

How far is your trip home?  Could you bring your filter along and run it alongside the other filter in your home tank?

 

[l_l_l]

You could bring the filter with you and run it in the 15g you have at home, you can empty the water from the other tank while you are out.

 

[mb629]

Trip home is about an hour long. There would be no disadvantages to running two filters in one tank?

 

[l_l_l]

Trip home is about an hour long. There would be no disadvantages to running two filters in one tank?

Except the fact that it might make more noise, I don't think so.
1. Maybe your fish won't like the increased ammount of current.
2. If your other tank has bacteria or disease, it will also contaminate your filter.
3. I don't know.
 
I'd wait for other people to answer tho as I am still fairly new to the hobby.

 

[misterpro]

If you do take the effort to move your filter home make sure you transport it in tank water, if you let it dry out it'll lose it's nitrifying bacteria.
 
Also if you're worried about an algae outbreak while the tank sits there without power, just hang a big towel or something like that over it.  No light = no algae

 

[Gizaroo2]

I think that moving the 10's filter over to your 15 temporarily and running alongside it will be all you need to do until you can get back to campus. You should be fine draining the 10 while you're gone, so that algae doesn't buildup. That will keep the bacteria on the filter media alive and going. When you get back to campus, just refill the tank, add conditioner and acclimate the fish.  Just make sure to keep the filter media wet with tank water on the transport home.
 
As noted above, the only problem will be possible contamination if your 15 has any sort of disease, or vice versa with your 10.
 
Alternatively, You could bring your 10 home if you have space and just run the two tanks side by side. That way, you won't be introducing anything between the two tanks. 

 

[carflo647]

i must agree with fish fantic i reccomend you do that! this really is a though situation though