Keeping Good bacteria alive ?

I want to empty my tank and re silicone a plastic part of the internal sump. It will make it much more efficient. I want to know how long can i keep the wool and bioballs dry without the good bacteria dying. Or what can i do to keep it alive? Do i need to cycle the tank again after this? im going to use the same gravel (filter sand) but add lots of black small rocks on top of it because the white sand looks dirty very quickly (plecos). I dont want to keep my fish in the smaller tanks too long but i also don't want to put them in an uncycled tank.

 

Franna I think if it dries they are dead.
Maybe keep them in a bag/netting or something in the tank.

 

if it dries they are dead!
you need to keep them in a bucket or something. the main thing is to keep the material in the tank water, keep it aerated(forgive the spelling,just make sure the water has bubbles), if you can keep the temperature constant with a heater , lastly some light if possible. try keep your gravel in these conditions to, if you do you will not have to cycle for too long, depending on how much water you keep

 

I was thinking of getting a huge bucket and putting everything in there with a filter ect running. Should i sommer replace the wool? But still keep all the bioballs and other second compartment stuff?

 

Sound good Franna. I usaully do the same thing. Keeps the water turning, the temp up and wet so the bacteria should be fine.

 

have a look at www.microbelift.com

 

Put all into a big plastic container. Add airstone for water movement, and heater.

Throw away the filter wool. It's only necessary for mechanical filtration, and as long as you got other media thst is populated with bacteria, you can toss all the wool out every 6 weeks or so and replace.

 

Keep all your media in a bucket with aeration and a heater to keep the bacteria alive. MicrobeLift have a fantastic product called Gel Filter Cartridge Innoculant which immediately seeds any media with bacteria exactly where you want the bacteria to be. It's very effective when changing media or when starting from scratch.

 

How long do you intend having the media 'out of the tank'?

 

Thanks for the advise.

until the silicone is dry.
About 24 hours maybe more. Tank has to dry first and get cleaned

 

Depending on how long you intend on doing this, you may need to "feed" your bacteria to keep their numbers up. I just drop in some flakes now and again. Sort of like cycling the tank again except a bit easier as you're just trying to maintain the bacteria, not start it up from scratch.

 

If the media is only going to be out of the tank for about 24 hours, then surely adding flakes seems like a waste? The flakes won't even break down into ammonia in that period?
More of a question than a statement. LOL Just my thoughts.