| Absolutely, I have water just like that and I was visiting a guy several towns away from me and he also has the same well water type. In fact, my well water is actually 6.2 out of the ground and within minutes of having contact with the air ( carbon dioxide is easily beated off into the atmosphere) the pH is a 7.2.
If this is not the case with this poster, you have to wonder- parasites, and drifting pH, what is the stocking level and maintenance program, including quarantine procedures?
As for PP in filters, in theory there can be some stray parasites or more likely ,stage of a parasite in a filter , depending on species as someone already mentioned. But parasites we are concerned about are mostly contact species needing a host all the time or at least within a certain period of time. If you do a proper dose for KILLING parasites, this will be a 8 hour active charge. In that time you will turn off circulation. THIS is NOT good for biobacteria as they are deprived of oxygen AND food and go under a stress condition. Any parasites or stages are also trapped as the time ticks away. The odds of them getting back to a fish, in a weakened state is very poor indeed. If there were any there to begin with, which again is unlikely.
Bacteria in your filters is within a gel-like structure called a matrix. It is not the individual cells you see when you actually see that brown biofilm. You are seeing the biofilms structure. This material is a semi permeable barrier that protects the cells from outside things such as antibiotics and pollutants like PP. But it is not a wall ! So you will have a die back as the PP oxidizes the surface and some young cells at the top of the matrix zone are killed. It will recover over a few days with no noticeable damage in most cases. I say most cases because if you have a weak biofilm, a new biofilm, a small biofilm, a biofilm already damaged by chemicals already added, a clean biofilm ( verses one that has some organic fouling) etc. you could see consequences in the way of rising nitrite or ammonia. If this becomes the case, simply stop feeding and do 20% water changes twice a week until the film comes back on line.
So either way, PP through a filter or a filter shut off for 8 hours, you are going to have POTENTIAL issues. But no guaranteed problem, just potential problem.
To be forewarned is to be forearmed. One thing to do if you bypass is to add aeration to the biochamber to keep water in the chambers or vortex well oxygenated and moving. Another is to flush your chambers BEFORE you close off the main circulation so that organics in the filter are not contributing to stress on the oxygen levels. Conversely, if you are going to run PP through, DO NOT clean the filters before hand as the organics give protection from the PP charge. Instead do the flush of chambers immediately after the 8 hour treatment ends to remove damaged film and oxidized organic mulm. JR |