two weeks ago I had a full afternoon of power cuts, off for 45 minutes on for 5 and off again......

this could be one of the reasons why I lost so many cory recently.... dont think the filters went toxic but it can be quite hard to recover if the filters are off for longer than 45 minutes........

lost some of my best panda corys last week (

over that hurdle, I curently have a friend on the look out for a battery powered back up what runs pc servers when they go down and will put it in a cupboard ready for when power goes down ion the future,,.....

might cost a harm and leg but in the long run hopefully I will couple it just to the main filters and pumps....

alternatively I love fluval U series internals right now, had some good deal second hand then after a little cleaning and service were as good as new )

I am looking for some battery heaters which I once saw advertised and may be a couple of decent battery pumps if you could recommend any...

cheers in advance...

LJ

I think there is a fear that tanks go toxic after a short amount of time. tanks can go without filtration for hours, if the tank is planted, even longer. I would say that a 150ltr tank, with a few plants would be fine unfiltered for up to 24hrs. as long as the filter media is kept in the tank itself then it will fine. the smaller the tank the faster it will go nasty. A breeding tank will prob go killer toxic in about 5 hrs with fry, 6-7 without. the bacteria still do their job, they will still biologically filter the water. with the filter on it brigns the water to the bacteria, so the process is accelerated. Remember that bacteria coveres everything in the tank, filters, gravel, plants, glass, everything. they keep working long after the fitler stops.

Mark, I did take ph levels... need to find the sheet where i recorded the readings now, and compare last readings with this latest one. Dont think it could be as I normally pick any spiked readings up and can't remember seeing any when I did them...

Will post back here later.....

Just to let you know out of about 100+ pleco fry of my last two spawns I only lost one I think which got trapped between the fry tank and the normal tank wall and got squashed

Other wise they are aLL GROWING WELL RIGHT NOW THANK YOU... just not many cories left....

but my pleco's I am very happy with....

I wonder with Cories then if its due to their popularity - and how they are imported and treated. I love them but despite water quality good enough for Apistos to spawn I couldn't keep them alive. The only change being keeping my pH constant. My bristlenose fascination comes from wanting to have catfish - but not being able to keep Cories. I'm quite a fish geek when it comes to testing & checking.

It has to be down to fish health - I built my tank for cories - and then watched as I lost peppered, sterbaii, julii time after time. Lovely little cats

its weird, I was given a couple of corys from a friend who moved interstate and she couldn't kill the things. not that she was trying but the tank they were in was horribly under filtered (single spongefilter for a 3ft, 150ltr tank). the tank was green with algae and i would hate to think what the nutrient levels were. Once i got the tank i set up a canister and fixed it all up. From then on they were fine, they even bred a handful of times...they fry always got eaten by the featherfin but still the gave it a go. Seems odd that she could treat them with such neglect and they thrived and others who look after theirs well seem to have so much trouble.

Personally i never much cared for them, much rather have bristlenose cats, but thats just IMO. I finally got rid of mine to another friend who has spawned them twice now and most of the young survived i believe. maybe mine were just tough little nuts from such a hard childhood.