HELP fish experts! power cut for 6 hours + -what should I do to help fishtank return to normal?

[statisticsthicko]

There was a power cut 2 days ago that lasted for 6+ hours - I have a 60 litre tank with one fancy goldfish in it - I'm aware that probably most of the good bacteria in the filter will have died off in the time there was no power. Unfortunately I had been a bit lax on the cleaning front recently and the tank was 5 days overdue a clean (normally clean once a week) and the filter was getting towards needing a clean as well . I have so far:

1. Cleaned the tank (50% water change) yesterday.
2. Rinsed the filter (not the sponge) under a tap as the impeller wasn't working properly.

3.Given the sponge a tiny really quick squeeze in some of the tank water.

1. I will cut back on feeding for a week or so.

What else can I do? At the moment the fish is not showing any signs of distress but I'm aware that if the tank doesn't at the very least have to cycle again completely, there will be a ammonia and/or nitrigen spike. I don't want to lose the fish as we've had her for 4 years and my dd would be gutted.

sorry meant nitrites spike not nitrigen!

Bump! Eau Rouge where are you...

Hello! Sounds like you're on the right track so far. All you can do for the next few days is plenty of water testing and lots of water changes. Make sure you keep the ammonia and nitrIte low- 6-ish hours shouldn't have killed off all the bacteria so you might only see small spikes.

How old is the fish? Fancy goldfish need more than 60 litres longterm.

Oh hello! Yes I know 60 litres isn't great - the fish is 4 years old - we're a bit limited for space. Should I do daily small water changes for a bit? I have a testing kit but it's pretty old I don't know how long the solutions are 'in date'?

I wouldn't panic, there will be some bacteria left. I once had a tropical tank filter fail for a couple of days whilst I was away and it went through a not-too-serious mini-cycle, I only lost one elderly fish.

If the test kit is strips then worth buying a new set as I think they probably degrade faster than the sealed tubes of chemical type.

Always worth running a small second filter in the tank for just such an occasion as this - also handy to plonk straight into breeding / isolation tanks.