Water Viability

[Water Keeper]

Hey,

I've seen tank cleaning videos on the internet (Youtube etc), and sometimes whilst doing some drastic changes to the scenery, they temporarily remove the fish. When they do this, the fish are just in a bucket of water (from tank), but with no filer aeration, etc... So I was just wondering how long they will last in a still bucket of water?

Thanks

 

[tenohfive]

I can't give you an upper limit but a couple of hours isn't an issue when I've done likewise in the past.

 

[Baccus]

All depends on the number of fish being put in the holding container and the temperature, cold water generally holds more oxygen than warm. I often put all my pond goldfish in a large tub while I do a major clean of their pond removing all the leaves etc, but I always leave the tub in the shade and put all of thier water plants in with them. They usually stay like this for a couple of hours but any longer and without any air being put in the goldfish would quickly start gasping and get pretty stressed.

 

[OldMan47]

I drove 500 miles to a fish convention with 4buckets in my car. When I got unpacked I placed mature sponge filters into their buckets and held them that way for 2 more days. All fish were fine after that treatment. Total time in unfiltered buckets was close to 12 hours.