Excellent Reminder

[Darlene]

I know threads usually belong in just one forum. This was posted in the turtle/tortoise forum & I thought it may be an exception. This is an excellent post put up by zhiv9. A great reminder for more experienced hobbyist & an excellent bit of information for the newbies. Thanks zhiv9 !!

"I posted this on a couple of other aquatic specific sites so I thought I'd mention it here. If you are part of the power outages in the last couple days, chances are in the first couple hours the majority of the beneficial bacteria in your filter will have died from lack of oxygen. Till it regrows(several weeks) it might be a good idea to change the water a couple extra times to help with resultant ammonia and nitrite spikes that will occur. This is particularly important if you keep fish."

[Pia]

Excellent idea. I also rinse the filter media if this happens since most of the befeficial bacteria has died off anyway, and when the filter starts again all the matter in the filter media will contribute to amonia spikes. Many people including myself aren't fans of tank additives, but I have found one that works very well in instances of amonia and nitrite problems. It is a bacteria starter called Cycle made by Hagen (other companies make similar products). It is concentrated doses of beneficial bacteria that will very quickly help replenish what has been lost. I have used it in the past with excellent results.