Leave water in filter or not?

[Kristin]

I just took all my fish out of my eighty gallon so that i could deep clean it. While i am cleaning do i leave water in the filter canister or do I drain it. Cleaning will take about a week. I do not want to kill the good bacteria in my filter. What do I do?
Thanks for any suggestions,
Kris

[Eddie]

I just took all my fish out of my eighty gallon so that i could deep clean it. While i am cleaning do i leave water in the filter canister or do I drain it. Cleaning will take about a week. I do not want to kill the good bacteria in my filter. What do I do?
Thanks for any suggestions,
Kris


Clean the filter media using the water from the fish tank and then just let everything lay out in the open air while you clean the tank.

Eddie

[FLGirl1977]

If it's for a week, won't airing it out kill the bacteria?? :confused:

[Kristin]

Yea Eddie, you are slacking, wont drying my media kill the good bacteria? Remember it is going to take a while for me to get the tank fully clean.

[FLGirl1977]

Just out of curiousity Kristin, but why that long??

[Eddie]

Just out of curiousity Kristin, but why that long??

I thought you were being sarcastic as to it being a week long. You will really need a week to clean it? :confused:

Sorry about the confusion.

You could just take the media from it and use it in the 30G with another filter.

Eddie

[FLGirl1977]

I thought you were being sarcastic as to it being a week long. You will really need a week to clean it? :confused:

Eddie

:p lol... that was funny... but seriously, even on my super-anal cleanings it doesn't take more than 30 minutes.. :o

[rickztahone]

Kristin, i have a 125 and i do deep cleaning once a month and it takes me no more than 1 1/2hrs. a week is way too long. what is the process you plan to use to clean the tank? it isn't all that much to deep clean a tank to be completely honest. did you have a disease in that tank that you are trying to sterilize? if that is the case then i understand the extended amount of time but even then it probably wouldn't be a week. just my 2 cents

[Kristin]

I am sorry, I thought it would take a lot longer to clean the tank really good. I miss understood my husband he said it will only take an hour to clean not a week. That was my bad. We are cleaning it out with a little bleach and hot water. How long before i can turn my filter back on?

[Eddie]

I am sorry, I thought it would take a lot longer to clean the tank really good. I miss understood my husband he said it will only take an hour to clean not a week. That was my bad. We are cleaning it out with a little bleach and hot water. How long before i can turn my filter back on?

Hey Kristen, if you do use a diluted bleach solution, just make sure you rinse it really really well. Make sure you can't smell bleach at all. I'd probably throw some extra dechlor in when you fill it, just something I do, not required.

If you do have the filter off for an hour, thats not too long but you could pull out the media and let it sit out if the water. The beneficial bacteria also needs oxygen to remain alive. An hour probably won't hurt it but it would not hurt it to just pull it out, even do a little rinsing using old water from the tank.

Eddie

[Kristin]

ok, thanks once again!!:p May I start to call you Master!! LOL:D

[Eddie]

ok, thanks once again!!:p May I start to call you Master!! LOL:D

Not even close....don't know anything about keeping discus. Haven't you read my signature. ;)

Eddie

[Kristin]

Did you change it b/c i am asking sooooo many questions?

[rickztahone]

I am sorry, I thought it would take a lot longer to clean the tank really good. I miss understood my husband he said it will only take an hour to clean not a week. That was my bad. We are cleaning it out with a little bleach and hot water. How long before i can turn my filter back on?

once again, was there a disease in that tank? if not then i truly see no need to sterilize it. do this, remove all the decor from your tank if you do have any. then, you siphon your tank while your filter is still on. make sure you siphon some of the tank water into a container so that later you can rinse out your sponges inside your filter in it. disconnect the filter right before the intake tube level is out of the water. this way your filter is turned off the least amount as possible. after you have siphoned all the stuff off the floor then you drain the water to your desired WC level. refill your tank with new water. when the tank is full is when i take my xp3 apart and start cleaning out the sponges, replacing the micro-sponge and that's pretty much it. i put it back together and since it's already primed i just wait the 2 necessary minutes for it to cycle and then i'm done with the tank. then i clean all the decorations, and driftwood and such. put it back and your done

[ShinShin]

Dump the water. You will have killed the aerobic bacteria, and ammonia levels in the canister will pollute the tank. Sponges can be dried 3-4 days with little harm to the bacteria.

Mat

[Eddie]

Did you change it b/c i am asking sooooo many questions?

No, I just changed it....

:)

[Kristin]

We did have a couple of infected fish in the tank, they are being treated in a qt. So yes I am going to go ahead and sterilize the tank. Why not. just want to make sure. We are treating all of our fish so now is the perfect time.

[Hattawi]

There might be chance of the infection (parasites) to linger / be trapped in the filter media if it is disease you are trying to get rid of.

I'm not sure if drying out the filter media would be enough to kill these pathogens/parasites. Drying out the filter will make the good bacteria form spores that will grow out again with good conditions (water.oxygen/ammonia/nitrite) but it will be hindered and won't be as efficient as compared to when you took it off water. It will take time to reach its origional levels.

I suggest to disinfect the whole thing including the filter. Maybe an expert can shed some light on this.

[Graham]

Hattawi while there are many species of bacteria that form a bio-film, the ones the we mainly rely on cannot form spores. The hetertrophic species can but the nitrifiers, the autotrophs cannot.

As long as the bio--media isn't allowed to dry out, just stays wet the bacteria will survive without food ie: NH3 for quite some time. Leaving them in a closed cansister filter or even just an opened up one, will allow O2 levels to drop to deadly levels for them.

G

[Kristin]

Graham,
I took my fish out of my 80gal. last night to go into qt. We drained the eighty all the way down but left water in the filter canister over night until we can disinfect the tank today. Do you think the stuff in my filter will be ok? or did I just mess up everything?

[Graham]

You should either drain it or toss an airstone in to keep the O2 levels up

[Kristin]

the water has already sat over night and my air pump is busted. my husband is the one who cleans the tank and he will not be home until after 5pm. What do I do?

[Graham]

Just drain the water out of it..it'll be fine

[Kristin]

ok, thanks. last thing i want to do is make my tank toxic