Filter Bacteria - Susceptibility To Power Cuts?

[Fish in the Highlands]

Hi
Coming back to fishkeeping after a 20 year break - please be gentle!
Setting up a 300l Fluval corner tank with external Fluval & Eheim filters and have a question about filter bacteria. We have reasonably frequent power cuts and are wondering how long the bacteria in the power filter will last before starting to die off? Considering whether to provide some external power to the filters.
Or is this pointless & over the top?!
Thanks for any comments!
InTheHighlands

 

[elmo666]

Thats a fair question. IMO from the point at which the flow through the filter fails, the bacteria very quickly begin to suffer. This is for two reasons, lack of food, ammonia, and lack of oxygenated water. The result of this is that the filter quickly goes from aertobic to anaerobic and begins to starve the fish of oxygen..... Not a good situation. So yes, putting an alternative power supply, eg a generator, is more than justified.

 

[Aquascaper]

I live (almost) in the highlands too and have a 3500w generator for backup.....but this is more for my marine reef tanks sake

 

[Fish in the Highlands]

I live (almost) in the highlands too and have a 3500w generator for backup.....but this is more for my marine reef tanks sake

Thanks for comments. Most of our power cuts are of short duration - between 30 mins and a couple of hours. For a long power cut, we'd run the whole tank off a generator. To cover these shorter power cuts, our thought was to connect the filters to our UPS (uninterruptible power supply) which protects our home computer network and would provide a couple of hours supply.

Am curious as to when the bacteria start to die off - minutes/hours? If anyone knows?!

InTheHighlands

 

[ShinySideUp]

Am curious as to when the bacteria start to die off - minutes/hours? If anyone knows?!

InTheHighlands

Hours but not as many hours as some would suggest. From personal experience I know that all bacteria are dead within 36 hours or at least so toxic as to kill fish when the filter is switched back on again and any nasty stuff comes flooding back in to the tank. Just as brewing yeast kills itself from it's own byproducts so I assume that filter bacteria would kill itself if water is not moved around it. My personal opinion is that bacteria will last much longer if every now and again water is moved through the filter environment and if this can't be done with power then it can be done by simply using pressure to push water into the filter perhaps by using a modified bicycle pump or simply taking the outlet pipe and allowing it to siphon into a bucket for a moment; basically anything that will move water inside the filter.

 

[elmo666]

The filter bacteria die for two reasons, both are caused by the flow from the tank stopping. Generally speaking the tank's volume is reasonably well oxygenated, sadly the tiny volume of water in a filter is depleated of oxygen very quickly if the flow stops. Similary, any ammonia is used up just as quickly, hence the filter is starved and dies

 

[Aquascaper]

Just swilling the media around in the tank can be enough short term.