Filters

[shbimi]

Hello.
I have an elite mini filter for my guppies, but the current is a bit too strong and they sometims have trouble staying in one place. Can a filter be turned off during the night? I understand why one is needed, and about the good bacteria, but will turning it off do serious damage?

 

[rabbut]

In a word, no, the filter must be on at all times, never switch it off, or there will be an ammonia spike that could wipe the tank

 

[ox5477]

Turning it off means the bacteria will prob die within an hour or two. The bacteria needs constant water flow to bring it a constant supply of food. Even after a few minutes, some of the bacteria will begin to die off. If you believe there is too much current, then try directing the output flow of the filter directly at the wall of the tank. If this is a HOB type filter (sorry, not familiar with the filter) then you could try tieing some screen in front of the the water fall to slow down the outward flow of the water... but this will get crudy fast so it will need to be cleaned often.

Ox

 

[Essjay]

I have this filter in my betta's tank. I turned the flow control down to the slowest, then I took the fan shaped nozzle off and put a little piece of foam into the conecting tube. Slows it down a treat.

 

[Mikaila31]

The bacteria won't die it takes quite a while for that to happen. But it won't be processing any ammonia so you will most likely get a ammonia spike during the night.

That said if the tank was densly planted it wouldn't be a problem.

 

[Miss Wiggle]

it's never a good idea to get into a habit of switching your filter off, even if you have plants to suck up the ammonia there's gonna be some day when you are in a rush in the morning and forget to switch it back on, a whole day without filtration and not only will ammonia have built up significantly but oxygen levels will be dropping as the water is stagnant, this will inevitably lead to big problems.

there's various ways to slow it down, either use something to block the flow so it's spread out or direct it at the wall or another surface. A lot of filters will come with a spray bar attachment which reduces flow.

 

[Mikaila31]

I agree with miss wiggle, I've forgotten to turn my filter back on for a whole day before. The tank was fine for the most part, I didn't have any problems with ammonia or oxygen. It was very densly planted and lightly stocked. I did notice that the fish didn't like to go near the bottom of the tank and further examination revealed that the bottom and other parts of the tank where quite cold. The heater could not heat the tank proberly without a current to move the water around. So one way or another you need to have a filter running.

 

[Labeo]

Diffusing the water flow is the answer rather than turning the filter off. If the good bacteria dies off, which is very likely to happen if the filter is off for a number of hours, your aquarium could suffer an ammonia spike detriment to the fish.

Known methods of water diffusion are spray bars and sponges. I once had an adapted sponge tied around the outlet of a mini-filter which worked wonders.

 

[rossyboy]

No i would never turn it off.

I've had this problem with guppys myself though as they're only small.

What I did, was to buy a 'bubble filter' instead (the ones normally in pet store tanks) and although noisier it's much more preferable for the guppies as it doesn't push water around so much.

 

[waterdrop]

Turning it off means the bacteria will prob die within an hour or two. The bacteria needs constant water flow to bring it a constant supply of food. Even after a few minutes, some of the bacteria will begin to die off. If you believe there is too much current, then try directing the output flow of the filter directly at the wall of the tank. If this is a HOB type filter (sorry, not familiar with the filter) then you could try tieing some screen in front of the the water fall to slow down the outward flow of the water... but this will get crudy fast so it will need to be cleaned often.

Ox

Ox, I had an interesting experience last weekend when I had a power outage of more than 24 hours. During that ordeal there were 2 periods of about 5 hours when my (fully cycled) filter sat there with no water turnover at all and basically no ammonia in the water. During the other 14 hours, or so, I did manual exchanges of tank water into the filter media box. Once the power was restored, I returned to a maintenance fishless cycling regimen of adding 5ppm ammonia and testing for ammonia and nitrites. The filter showed no ill effect - it processed the 5ppm ammonia down to zero ammonia and nitrites in 12 hours or less - to my great relief.

Interestingly, I had previously done some extensive searches here on what to do during power outages and the feeling about how fast the populations might decline was decidedly mixed. I was very worried about those 5-hour dead periods but in my case it certainly seems the periods were survived and did not even cause a detectable mini-cycle, much to my surprise.

~~waterdrop~~