What to do on power loss?

[number17Fan]

I lost power to my 55 gal African Cichlid (mbuna) tank with adults and Juvies and a 10 gal grow out tank with 11 mbuna fry in it today. In 5 years of living here we never lost power, so this was a panic situation when it came to the tanks.

I got home 2 hours after the outage with a PC UPS and plugged in the filter and air pump on the 55. Was this a mistake? After plugging in the filter, I realized I could be pumping bad stuff into the tank from the dead bacteria in my filter.

Should I have cleaned the filter out 1st? How long does an idle filter last before the bacteria goes anerobic?

Any thoughts on power loss?

 

[PMK]

If its a couple of hours u should be fine since once i had to run to my dads house for an emergency right in the middle of filter maintenance and left it for about 5 hours

 

[ewurm]

My filters were fine after 4 days. They were full of water.

 

[PMK]

My filters were fine after 4 days. They were full of water.

I bet they stunk though