Fluval / power outage danger??

[eden]

Hi - I have been told (by everyone here) to yank my UGF so I went to a big aquarium store to get better filtration. They sold me a Fluval 304. I thought this was ok because I see it mentioned her a lot. Anywan, my LFS guy who has been holding my hand through the whole newbie experience says that a Fluval is ok, but if we have a power failure of > 4 hours to yank it or when the power comes back on , it will kill everything in my tank. What is everyone else's experience on this?? We have a lot of power outages here and I travel about a week a month for work, so I am worried to leave it on while I am gone. Thanks!

 

[sadlit'lfish]

Did he say "why" everything would die?

 

[eden]

Yes, because the bad bacteria would build up in the Fluval and then get flushed into the tank.

 

[sadlit'lfish]

I don't know how much stock I'd put in that. I've had to shut my tanks down for 8hrs+ before when we had the house bombed for bugs. I didn't see any change in levels after that. And one of the tanks has a 404 on it. I just can't see anything dieing off that fast, maybe after 10hrs but 4 that I don't see. IMO

 

[beth]

The fluval holds a good deal of waste [that is the nature of this type of filter] and dependents wholly upon constant circulating water for its viability. Yes, it could throw back some pretty nasty stuff into your tank. The minute the filter is no longer receiving the air/water supply, bacteria used to break down the waste starts to die, thus the viability of the fluval fiter itself dies. If the filter is off for anything but a short time, I would clean it out.

 

[sadlit'lfish]

Now that you mention it, cleaning that thing out is my least favorite thing about this hobbie.

 

[bacardibombillo]

Well u are supossed to once every six months do foam replacement or rinsing... Use bio-media and ammo-chips in the fluval those u dont rinse... I have 2 tanks one has an old black 403 fluval in a 90gls, and the other one has a new gray 404 fluva in a 75gls, The 75gl reef I feed my corals every sat. so I shut off the skimmer and the fluval for six hours and just leave the pumps running. After six hrs. I turn the fluval on, and I get a little bit of junk but nothing to worry about... A year and a half doing this schedule of mine...
So who ever told u that is not a good person Please get that off your mind you will be alright take my word for it....

 

[simm]

On fuvals they have to be primed with water when first turned on to get it going. Power turning off then back on probably wont start it up. About killing everything I never had this problem when mine shut off. However if its not running there could be a chance that the bad things its sucking up may expel those contents back into the tank.

 

[kpogue]

I have been using them for years and have never had that problem! I have 2 403's in my 55 fresh and 1 403 in my 30 reef. I clean the filters fresh every 3 mos and my reef every six weeks. All things considered, you would have to have a pretty dirty filter and a very long power outage until you would get a signifcant impact from them. But if in doubt you can always clean it after a power outage. Better safe then sorry.
Also - too many times you may get advise preceded with the words "I heard"....for me at least, unless I can read about from a credible source, hold it my hand or have had first hand experience with the issue, "I heard " will never be a part of my advice given, or taken. I'm not yelln', I'm just sayn'....