Will turning it off hurt my fish?

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L!NUS

L!NUS

Gambusia
MFK Member
Dec 12, 2009
352
0
16
Burbank, Ca
This is a stupid question, but I'm the paranoid type.

Just got home to find my XP3 making weird noises and barley pumping. No biggie, just jammed or needs a quick cleaning. If I turn it off for the night, will it hurt any of the plants/snails/fish in my tank?

BTW I have a big aerator so O2 is not a problem.
 
True, but there is nothing else I can do. It's late, everyone is sleeping, and I'm sure leaving the filter on will hurt the motor.

The bio media is till underwater so won't it be ok.
 
L!NUS said:
True, but there is nothing else I can do. It's late, everyone is sleeping, and I'm sure leaving the filter on will hurt the motor.

The bio media is till underwater so won't it be ok.
Click to expand...

Place the bio media in the aquarium next to the aerator, and you should be able to save the vast majority of the beneficial bacteria.
 
Hello; While a lot of beneficial bacteria (bb) will be in the filter media, there will be other populations in other parts of the tank. Placing some of the media in a mesh bag in the tank is not a bad idea, but is likely not too critical. You appear to have an established (cycled) tank so there should be plenty of bb around and they will reproduce quickly while the filter is off.
I have run tanks for considerable time with only bubblers.
An issue that may come up could be a build up of toxins in the filter if the power is off for a long time. Members have reported this problem when turning some large volume filters back on after a long power outage.
It may be a good time to clean out the whole filter as I have had snails grow large enough in a filter to clog up the impeller and passages. They apparently got in the filter when very small and grew.
Some members have posted about having a sponge filter with the sponge split running in one of their tanks. This allows half of the bb loaded sponge to be moved into any tank that may be in need of a bb population. I have adopted this practice. I found some foam material for this purpose at Wal-mart.
One note, the stocking density level may be a factor on how long you can go without the filter. With low stocking density you can go for a long time on bubblers alone.
 
Well I ended up not throwing the media in the tank. I am a Bio major and I was thinking that these creatures aren't babies, they've been here for Billions of years so one night in a filter with nutritious water won't hurt them.

I did clean the filter, replaced the Carbon and such, working great now. Thanks for your help guys. Next time I will def. put the media in the tank. It's just that I've been sleep deprived this week (finals) and I had to wake up early this morning for work. I don't want to seem like on of those guys who asks for help and doesn't listen.
 
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