Will Bacteria Live?

[cegha]

Ok my friend lives by himself, and his parents left a fishtank in the house, and he didnt really take care of it.

There is like some marbles for gravel and a red oscar and some other small fish enhabit it. Well i went over today to help him change the water, in it, cause there was tons of poop all over the bottom and the water quality looked terrible. Well he has a magnum external filter. The filter sat behind the tank. Well after i changed enough water that i got a bunch of poop out and it looking semi cleaner i figured i would clean the filter off, so i shut off the filter, took it out shook it off in tank water that was in a bucket, and then hooked it back up, and to no avail i could not make it work again.

I think that after screwing with it enough that the pump needs to be below the tank. Well the hoses he had for it didn't let it reach from the ground to up and into the tank, so were going to get some tomorrow (really today since its 3:08am). Well i just happened to catch him online and forgot that the bacteria in the filter need to have oxygen, and like moving water, and stuff, and forgot about it, because i left it off.

I left it at probably 8PM sitting there (there was water in the external filter covering the filter and all), and it is now 3:08AM, and i told him to take the filter out and go sit it in the tank with the fish, to keep it circulated, so the bacteria would live.

His tank has like a thing that takes oxygen out the air and blows it into the tank, so the fish have oxygen and all until later today when we go get tubing.

Do you think that it will cause his tank to cycle again if the filter was left in water sitting from 8PM to 3AM? He doesn't really know anything about fish, except to throw food in there for them too eat.

Would lowes/home depot sell tubing? We need like that round tubing that is like semi-thick and probably like big around as a nickel. I would figure lowes would sell it but wasn't totally sure.

 

[TerraDreamer]

Did you properly prime the magnum? If it doesn't have water in it, it won't run. It was, after all, running before, right?

EDIT: You might be able to find the hose at Lowe's. Just make sure it's fairly soft and flexible. You can for certain find it in a fish store.

 

[crazie.eddie]

Some of the bacteria probably died in the filter. As far as how much of it, it is hard to tell. Keep in mind that there is benificial bacteria in the substrate also and since there was an airpump running, this oxygenated the water, helping the bacteria. Therefore, the tank should not start another cycle.

 

[cegha]

Did you properly prime the magnum? If it doesn't have water in it, it won't run. It was, after all, running before, right?

EDIT: You might be able to find the hose at Lowe's. Just make sure it's fairly soft and flexible. You can for certain find it in a fish store.

Yes it had water in it, and it started to go up the "out" tube, but could just never fully make it and get going.

Edit: ok, we went and got tubing and hooked it up, after like half hour of trying to get it to work, we came to the conclusion that the filter is so clogged that it won't allow it to suck up water. So we installed a new filter in it. I just took the old one out and sat it in the fish tank.

So will the bacteria in the gravel (marbles) and that old filter sitting in the tank be fine? How long should i leave the old filter sitting in the tank?