left off filter for 24h

[Matteus]

I think something that may have been missed in explanation here Sarah J , is that the B.B. (beneficial bacteria) is not necessarily in the water itself, but on surfaces of your filter/ media, decoration, glass substrate etc. By replacing old water with new you are typically just removing toxins that are within the water. So no harm no foul to do another water change as was mentioned.

I think anyone who has a canister has done this to some degree or another. You should be able to recover from this with little to no casualties, but like others mentioned test your parameters to be on the safe side.

In regards to opening the valve up immediately and a cloud comes shooting out that makes sense. If you didn’t rinse out your media during that maintenance there would be a great deal of detritus built up that has just been churned (slightly I’d imagine) for 24 hrs within the canister. Some of the B.B. would die from

a) being choked out by no oxygen flow
B) too much crud in the system.
(My theory from what I have been reading for the last year ).

but I do not think all of the B.B. would be dead unless the canister media was clogged with detritus.

 

[Niki_up]

I think something that may have been missed in explanation here Sarah J , is that the B.B. (beneficial bacteria) is not necessarily in the water itself, but on surfaces of your filter/ media, decoration, glass substrate etc. By replacing old water with new you are typically just removing toxins that are within the water. So no harm no foul to do another water change as was mentioned.

I think anyone who has a canister has done this to some degree or another. You should be able to recover from this with little to no casualties, but like others mentioned test your parameters to be on the safe side.

In regards to opening the valve up immediately and a cloud comes shooting out that makes sense. If you didn’t rinse out your media during that maintenance there would be a great deal of detritus built up that has just been churned (slightly I’d imagine) for 24 hrs within the canister. Some of the B.B. would die from

a) being choked out by no oxygen flow
B) too much crud in the system.
(My theory from what I have been reading for the last year ).

but I do not think all of the B.B. would be dead unless the canister media was clogged with detritus.

I agree I don’t think all the bb died either, unless it was bone dry when you re-started the canister

 

[TwoHedWlf]

I've actually a couple times left my canister off for a day or two, gave it a quick clean mostly just to replace the water and get the worst of the gun out. And then switched it back on, first two times I kept a close eye on the ammonia for the week after, never detected a trace.

 

[Tarsun]

having a lightly stocked tank with 2 canisters is nice because i can rely on the one canister for BB while i clean the other. Cleaning isnt back to back of course but separated by a length of time.
a backwash feature is nice as well to run tank water through the can in the opposite direction to remove debris and what not.

*if it were me... id rinse the filter and media with tank water, and reconnect. maybe add another WC or two in my routine as well. But thats me, and i dont have sensitive fish stocked.