Power Outage and Canisters

[aquagal]

Like many of you I'm sure, my [Northern Virginia] area was hit with some incredibly strong storms last night that knocked out my power for 9 hours. After about an hour, I opened the top of my canister filters to let in some Oxygen.

They filters sat all night (top open) and I'm wondering what to do next. Should I rinse everything? I don't want to reconnect only to have a lot of dead bacteria swirling around the tank?

Thanks!

Sherry

[Graham]

Hi The water and the bacteria in the bottom of the cansister maybe ''dead''. I'd pull it apart and change out and clean everything but the actaul bio-media. A light rinse on that at best

G

[aquagal]

Thanks Graham. I also have two sponge filters in each tank that I hope are o.k. and keep the bio filter going...

[Harriett]

Good luck, Sherry--you should do ok here. The bacterial population was no doubt impacted so you may see a dip possibly, but you should have enough to seed very quickly back up to normal levels.
Bummer. Probably picking up a battery powered air pump would be good back up since you are sort of in tornado alley now?
Fish ok?
Best regards
Harriett

[aquagal]

Thanks Harriet. I just finished cleaning everything out and the fish look fine so far. I added some StressZyme which should give the tank a good boost in good bacteria.

I do have a battery-powered air pump and it worked great (noisy, but it works). Trying to convince my husband we need a generator...he's not going for it...?

Bite your tongue on that tornado alley business. My daughers hear the "T" word and they freak out. Seems like the whole country is tornado alley these days...scary!

[MostlyDiscus]

Yesterday was a PAIN. Northern Va fell apart. My cans are off atm and waiting to be opened and cleaned. Temp fell a bit until I put the generator on but the fish are no worse for the wear. GL Sherry Ed

[aquagal]

Yesterday WAS a pain...tank water temp stayed warm for a long time, I was amazed! Fish seem no worse for the wear so far.

Thanks Ed!

[bgbdwlf2500]

look on ebay, you can get a generator for 130 shipped that will run multiple tanks no problem..... will be getting 1 or 2 soon... id freak if i lost my salt tanks.... discus are important too though..

[crazie.eddie]

I believe opening up the canister doesn't oxygenate the water, the water needs to be running/flowing. You could have put in an airstone connected to an airpump.

From what I've read before, StressZym contains different bacteria from what is normally found in a established tank. Although they perform the same purpose, the bacteria found in StressZym does not colonize well and must be constantly applied.

[Harriett]

Eddie, you have it exactly--to preserve the bacteria in the canister media, you would need to open the canister [s] and get the media into a container where you can at least have an air pump running; even better would be a powerhead. I had an Eheim fail, which was a 2ndary pump on a large tank, a couple months ago; I pulled the Eheim, took all the media and put it in a 5 gal bucket with a powerhead stuck in there. It took a week to get things fixed and the bacterial bed in the media appears to have stayed intact--no problems when I put it back together.

Sherry--geez, [don't] say it or think it, you are in the T zone, darlin'! Hope the generator manifests!!!

Best regards
Harriett

[aquagal]

o.k., so apparently I got it wrong on oxygenating the canisters. I think next time I'll just yank out the media and put it in my sink.

On a positive note, my fish seem to have weathered just fine (excuse the pun).

Looks like it may be a bumpy summer, weather-wise...