Disaster Happened

[Dpayton11]

Okay so I have a 55 gallon tank with 8 Harley's, 10 peppered Cory's, 1 albino bn pleco.

Today I woke up and went to turn the lights on and noticed my carpet was soaked....my filter tilted back during the night and emptied out of the back, drip by drip. So I went and got a 10 gallon tank, transferred my water and sand to the 10 gallon along with my filter and heater. I let it heat up and transferred all my fish into there.

Okay so then I emptied the remaining water out of my 55 gallon and and took it off the stand and moved the stand out and immediately threw down towels and started soaking it up and running fans to get it to dry. I think I'm okay with the carpet without getting any mold or anything...

But then I noticed a pretty big crack in the bottom part of my stand and I guess water seeped into it and made the wood to warp pretty much so that the stand is un usable now...

So my question is...do you think my fish will be okay in the 10 gallon tank for a couple days to a week until I see if I can get a refund on my stand or afford a different one? They are all young fish so their not big...I got the cories close to 2 weeks ago and the Harley's a few days after...the main thing I'm worried about is my pleco which I just got two days ago...

Do you think they will get stressed and die? I'm not feeding them today or tomorrow probably and I'm keeping the lights off to keep them less stressed. Hopefully I can get this sorted out ASAP.

 

[ncguppy830]

well if your running the 55 gallon filter i dont see why not.

 

[SaltyTheFry]

They'll be fine, just keep them well fed and happy till the aquarium is up and running again.

 

[Dpayton11]

Will do, thanks guys! I hope the pleco is alright...he was just adjusting to the 55 and I moved him again into a smaller tank! Lol.

 

[Blondielovesfish]

Make sure to either use filter media from the 55G filter or use the 55G filter to make sure no ammonia or nitrite spikes.

 

[Dpayton11]

So I couldn't use the filter from my 55 cuz the 10 gallon tank isn't tall enough. But I transferred as much filter media as i could into a smaller filter that I bought. I will be on the lookout for ammonia rises and do water changes accordingly.

Another question is... All my filter media from my 55 gallon tank is in a bucket with water over them and im gonna put a small amount of pure ammonia in it every cpl days until I can get my new stand and put my 55 gallon tank back together....do you think the bacteria colonies will survive until then?

 

[Meeresstille]

The way I understand this keeping the bacteria in the filter alive thing is that they need food and oxygen. The media being immersed in water will not give them oxygen, and I'm not sure if the Ammonia would then do any good? 
 
Keeping the media immersed for a few days will bring the bacteria into some sort of hibernation, you may have a few die off, but you are using some of the media in the other filter you said, so when you set the 55 gallon up again with both, the used media and the hibernation media, you would just need to keep an eye on the water parameters for a few day, to be prepared for any spikes. 
 
I've done this before and had no problem with the filter after wards, never even saw an Ammonia or Nitrite spike after.

 

[Dpayton11]

Hmm...so if I plug in an air stone...and drop it in the bucket as well that should provide oxygen and they will be fine?