Will I Loose Bacteria In My Filter?

[Tiger Tiger]

I have friends over xmas and i have a couple sleeping by the tank.Although one external is quite the other does give out a bit of a hum!

If i switched the Hum one off over night but kept the quite one going would i loose the bacteria in the noisy one when switched on in the morning?

Thanks

 

[flash22]

You can turn a filter off for anything up to 4 hours (shouldnt be off for more than 2 hour imho) had my ehiem external off for 6 hours while i sort my tank out and that killed most of the bacterial off

 

[rdd1952]

It should be fine. Just don't forget to cut it back on. As long as the media stays wet, the bacteria won't start to die off for a good while, probably a matter of days before significant loss occurs. They will easily make it through the night.

 

[TheConstantGrower]

I love conflicting posts.

 

[watkins101]

Perhaps you could try and insulate the sound with a towel or blanket.

 

[andywg]

The bacteria in the filter are some of the slower growing bacterial colonies (which is why it takes so long to cycle the tank) but as a trade off they are also some of the slowest to die. I recall bignose posted some research which suggested a mortality rate of around 5% per 24 hours.