Filter Stopped. HELP!!!

[Puffer]

I was feeding my fish when I suddenly saw the bioballs in the reactor stopped revolving. To my horror, my atman 3337 cannister filter's power plug was not fully inserted into the main - meaning the filter stopped working for how long I could not imagined. When I put back the plug, the water in the tank had a really foul smell - smell of those 'long kang' water. I immediately made a 50% WC. Now observing the fauna. I suspect my cannister filter has stopped working since last night. Think over 90% of the good bacteria has died. What else could I do? Should I get a bottle of those good bacteria to improve the current situation? Below are further information on my tank:

Tank: 3 feet densely planted with 10 cardinals, 5 white cloud, 1 sae, 3 bristlenose plecos, some cherry shrimps. Lighting powered with 2 x PL 36W and 2 x PL 24W. CO2: 2 bps.

What else could I do? Afraid of losing my beloved albino plecos.

[illumnae]

get bottled beneficial bacteria and dose liberally and do very frequent water changes till the bacteria culture builds up again. is your tank densely planted? if it is you probably have a small amount of buffer

[Puffer]

get bottled beneficial bacteria and dose liberally and do very frequent water changes till the bacteria culture builds up again. is your tank densely planted? if it is you probably have a small amount of buffer

Hi Bro Illumnae, thanks a million for the quick response. Can I know what you mean by the sentence in bold? Yes, it is a densely planted tank and I guess it is quite a light-loaded planted tank considering the fauna I have now. Any particular reliable brand you can recommend? I need to go to get it real soon!

[illumnae]

as in plants do take in ammonia as well, so there's some way of getting rid of ammonia besides the beneficial bacteria.

as for the brand of bottled cycling liquid, i'm not too sure. I think people report good results with Nutrafin cycle?

[benny]

Rob,

You should do another 2 X50% water change over the next 6 hour period. This is to get rid of the remaining toxins in dumped into your planted tank by your filter. Watch by monitoring your fishes and plants.

Judging from what you wrote, you filter was turned off longer that what you think. If it's only a day, it usually will not smell that bad unless it has not been cleaned for a long, long time.

I've previously had this problem a few times. The goop in the filter decompose and you have NO2 and Ammonia trapped in filter. These are highly toxic to the fishes and prolonged contact with these agents will kill the fish. Also, the pH in the filter is probably below 4, when you released the water into the tank, you will cause plant melt too. When plants die, they cannot help to remove these toxin and in fact, will add to it.

For me, I changed 100% of the water and restarted my tanks. Only Anubias survived the disaster as they were tougher. Hornwort melted almost immediately. Fishes were struggling, but with the water change, most of them managed to survivie, although there were some casualties.

Cheers,

[Puffer]

Hello Illumnae and Benny,
Thank you so much for the prompt advice. I have just bought a bottle of beneficial bacteria. The brand is PSB Conditioner from Taiwan. Just dosed 10ml into the tank, as instructed. I am monitoring the fauna. The fish are behaving ok although I don't see any shrimps around yet. The tank water is much less smelly. I will perform another WC later. The filter has not been cleaned for almost 2 months. Benny, you are probably right to judge that the filter might be off for > 24 hours. Good information on the plants, I will keep watch in this aspect, especially the hornworts. Keeping my fingers crossed.

[Puffer]

It has been > 24 hours since the incident and I am happy to conclude that there should be no casualty (I do see cherry shrimps around but no sight of yamatos as yet). I did a couple of 50% WC yesterday over a 3-hour interval. Dosed 10ml of beneficial bacteria liquid once yesterday afternoon, and once this morning. The tank water has no foul smell and the fish and plants are behaving normally. Fish eating well and plants such as hornworts, downoi, e tenellus, nanas etc are photosynthesising and no melting. A big Thank You to brothers Illumnae and Benny. Your prompt replies and advice have saved my fish, shrimps and plants.