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How Long Before Beneficial Bacteria Dies?


johnjohnjohn87
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Hello everyone,

I've gotten some feedback for this topic over on Reddit, but I was wondering what you guys though about a few beneficial bacteria questions I had:

- How long can beneficial bacteria can survive without oxygenation (like when you turn off a canister filter)?

- How long can filter media be out of the water before BB starts to die off?

- Are there good rules of thumb to consider when doing maintenance? (like how long can the canister be off or sponge be out of the water?)

It's my first post here, so sorry if I'm not following the rules.

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I have no idea how long the bacteria in filter media will survive with out circulation. I've certainly gone 2-3 hours keeping the filter media in a bucket filled with tank water and it hasn't created any problems. But if I let it sit overnight which sometimes happens there is definitely a foul odor the next day, which would lead me to believe that the beneficial bacteria has crashed or is in the process of crashing. Still I just rinse it very well and re-set it up and everything catches back up in a few days. To be sure you can always re-seed it by squeezing out a sponge filter from another tank into the tank.

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4 hours ago, Dean’s Fishroom said:

I have no idea how long the bacteria in filter media will survive with out circulation. I've certainly gone 2-3 hours keeping the filter media in a bucket filled with tank water and it hasn't created any problems. But if I let it sit overnight which sometimes happens there is definitely a foul odor the next day, which would lead me to believe that the beneficial bacteria has crashed or is in the process of crashing. Still I just rinse it very well and re-set it up and everything catches back up in a few days. To be sure you can always re-seed it by squeezing out a sponge filter from another tank into the tank.

Dean!!! Thank you! A couple hours is good enough to keep in mind when doing maintenance (and more then I assumed). 

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