my electric went out for about 4 hours or so today, and when it came back on, there was all sorts of yucky sediment looking stuff that had settled on the bottom of the tank........i am guessing that is not a good thing. my question is: is this stuff normally floating around in the water when all the bubbles and filter is going? surly that's can't good for the fish........or is it just maybe something that leaked out of the filter?

what type of filter do you have?

Whenever I shut off my filter when I clean, a certain amount of particulate (a nice way of saying YUCK) comes out and floats around. I like to unplug it before I have vacumned out the allotment of water so I can suck up the majority of the stuff. It gets filtered out right away as soon as the filter gets turned back on.

I think a certain amount of stuff is not stuck to the filter pads, or has not gone through the strainer grate in the filter. The force of the water is holding it in the filter. When the water is no longer passing through the filter and falls back into the tank from the filter, all the stuff that is not stuck comes with the water.

It is normal enough - suck what you can out and the rest will get filtered.

Also if you have a trickle-down power filter, algae, feces, etc. will sometimes collect on the return opening. This turns into a crusty, almost paper-like substance and when the filter is turned off, this flakes off and fall into the tank.

It should not be a problem, it is nothing new or exotic to the tank.

great, thanks for your info!
for jclif, i have a penguin 170 bio wheel filter.
-I vacumed out most of the stuff last night, and my fish are doing good, the water is a little cloudy today, but nothing major, so I guess that means all is well in the tank

That's odd...maybe some sediments get stuck in the filter when it's on and gets flushed out when the water stops flowing...no biggie. If you think about it, those stuff were already in your tank in the first place. The only difference is that it's now all over the tank