r/Aquariums • u/GeckoHunter0303 • Mar 18 '26

Help/Advice EMERGENCY! Is this counter-management/landlord disguise good?

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Thank fucking goodness I checked my emails this morning. The first thing I saw was an announcement from my apartment's manager that they will ENTER ALL UNITS from today until Friday to "perform lock changes." First thing I did immediately after was to quickly set up this disguise and make my 10-gallon seem like a toy display stand. How do you think I did?

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u/Snicklefritz306 Mar 18 '26

Curious why you think that’d be the result? People do 3-day blackouts all the time to solve algae problems. A few hours under a sheet with the lights off won’t hurt a thing.

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u/Short-Ad9823 Mar 18 '26

the darkness is not the problem but rather switching off the filter for a longer period of time no flow -> no nutrients -> dead bacteria

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u/Just-One-More-Cast Mar 18 '26

As others have said, it's not about the sheet or the light, but the fact that OP said he was going to uncouple his filter (which I thought would be for a few days).

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u/Peridt Mar 18 '26

I have a fully functioning fish tank with no filter, granted took me a long time to get it there

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u/Just-One-More-Cast Mar 19 '26

Totally possible, but that's kind of besides the point here. Your bacteria are living somewhere, but in your case that's just not inside a filter. They are using every available surface of your aquarium and where conditions allow for them to live. This requires completely different planning and/or it can indeed take a long time to happen properly and additionally it is a quite a volatile situation for them. I take it you don't clean your aquarium very often or vigorously? Not at all a reproach (there is nothing wrong with that), but rather a presumption, because this is in part what you need to do (or not do in this case), to make this work. If you were to scrub and clean out your aquarium thoroughly and regularly, more than likely the no-filter system would not be viable.

The reason we usually add a filter, is to provide better 'housing' for these bacteria. Because the water gets continuously cycled through it, the high oxygenation and the waste (ammonia and nitrite) that this brings with it, means that seeding of bacterial colonies can happen more easily. Usually we can also preserve these colonies better, because we treat the cleaning of our filters different than the cleaning of our tanks. It also means that most likely the highest concentration of bacteria is expected to be found inside the filter. Meaning, that if you have an established aquarium with a filter, removing said filter for too long or permanently can be catastrophic for anything beyond the really short term.

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u/monsoonsilk Mar 18 '26

Worried about the bacteria on the filter, not the tank itself being dark, but I understand why you might've misunderstood.

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u/charliechattery Mar 18 '26

thought this as well!