How Long Can Beneficial Bacteria Survive Out Of Water?

I had to take my ceremic rings out of my aquaclear 20 filter to put it in a new aquaclear 30 filter basket, but I spent a good amount of time, about 3 hours, trying to get more in than I could before giving up to what was easiest

People say lots of bacteria can survive out of water without dying, but I don't know because people on this forum say it will die if it dries out. I am not sure that is true or is it?

 

The beneficial bacteria would need water to survive, I know that people left them out for 30 minutes with no severe affects. As long as your filter media was still wet you should be fine, but do expect some losses. But the BB re-colonizes quite quickly.

For now, I would just monitor your parameters and see if it made a change.

 

Can you just fill a bucket full of aquarium water and leave the ceramic rings soaking in that? That way you won't have to worry about any potential losses, however small they may be

 

Can you just fill a bucket full of aquarium water and leave the ceramic rings soaking in that? That way you won't have to worry about any potential losses, however small they may be

Yeah, as long as they have water they'll make it.

 

But the BB re-colonizes quite quickly.

That may be, but only heterotrophic bacteria eats dead bacteria, not autotrophic, so I would need to work on replacing my bio ring media unfortunately.

 

Do you think, instead of replacing my media because it has dead bacteria, that the dead bacteria will wash away and autorophic bacteria will form again in their place?