[wakeupplan]

Lost power. I'm sure many have also. but I'm just wondering what I should do to keep fish alive. I don't have any type of back ups for my tank so should I just do water changes to keep them alive untill I get power or should I just leave the tanks alone?

 

[ridley25]

Hopefully it won't be out long.

If you happen to have an HOB filter with a biowheel, put the biowheel in the tank to keep it wet.

Put a blanket over the tank to trap more heat if you've lost your home heating.

Don't feed them.

Happy to offer more advice if there's a specific worry!

kevin

 

[dotbomb]

You'll also want aeration.

This can be accomplished with water changes (which can also help keep the temp up in the tank).

The long term/less hassle solution is to buy a battery powered air pump. They sell them online or you can go to a sporting goods store that has a good fishing department and buy a pump there. A lot of fisherman buy them to keep their catch alive in buckets or boat wells.

 

[wakeupplan]

I'm not to worried about heat the powers been off for about 11 hours and its only dropped 6 degrees but I'm more worried I guess about toxic build up and oxygen running low. So I guess I'm just wondering howlong oxygen will stay in the water or how fast toxins build up. I have about 20 fish from about 6inch to ttwo inch in the tank. Thanks.

 

[dotbomb]

Oh another option for the air pump is if you have a power inverter you can hook up to your car. You can then plug an air pump into the inverter to run into your tank. Just make sure you don't run the car battery dead.

 

[dotbomb]

At 11 hours I would imagine the oxygen level is getting fairly low. Articles I've been reading say 3 hours is a long time but it all depends on the size of the tank and how many fish there are of course.

I personally would do some water changes with properly treated water and spread them out a bit. You can use the changes to replace oxygen, remove toxins, and also bring up the temp. Bring the temp up slowly though you don't want to shock the fish.

 

[Myrock]

I agree. I would use the bucket to do the water changes and make sure the water splash as you pour it for aeration. Good thing you have heat. I had this happen to me (no power) when I lived in Chicago but I wasnt home. Lost a show fish.

 

[wakeupplan]

All I got is a ventless furnace in the basement but its only a small two bedroom house and for the most part it holds what heat it does have. I'm hopin it don't drop into the sixties but I may just add water a little warmer with my python slowly if needed to keep the tank goin... id hope not to lose any of my little girls fav fish. She is only six months but she has her fav to keep an eye on and the tank plus holding her in front of the tank is the eaiest ways to calm her down if she is just fussy.... I wouldn't wanna lose that.

 

[wakeupplan]

I will def have to look into gettin a back up air pump. My town can lose power for a few hours if the wind blows just right on a sunny day ha ha. Thanks for all the input everyone....

 

[dotbomb]

You are welcome. Hope you get power back soon!

 

[Rhinox]

I don't know if anyone has mentioned this yet, but make sure you keep the waters in your filters oxygenated as well for the bacteria in there. If they're out for too long, the lack of oxygen could kill them. I've heard they can go anaerobic if left too long without oxygenated water and release toxic chemicals once they start back up, although I don't know how true that really is.

 

[Malawi Mac]

Sorry to hear you're in this predicament. I could be in your shoes, but we only got the edge of this storm. A few inches of sleet followed by a dusting of snow.

You should be doing regular water changes. Hopefully you have a gas water heater so that you can still get hot water even without electricity.

Someone suggested using an inverter to obtain power from your car battery. If you somehow have access to a deep cycle battery (i.e., one that fishermen use for electric trolling motors and RV owners use for power in the RV) that would be much better than using a cranking battery.

For future reference, another option is a generator. Some of the newer models are very quiet. In anticipation of this storm, I removed our 2000 watt Honda from storage and went out Sunday night and bought 18 gallons of gasoline. Thankfully, I didn't need it.

 

[wakeupplan]

Thanks again for all the input. I did a few partial water changes using water just a bit warmer to the touch. And I kept the biowheels from my emporer 400s in the tank. I just got power so the fish had to go about ten hours without power. So I just thought I would tell everyone all survived the outage. They looked a little stressed. But after some heat and a water change and I'm sure they will all b swimming happily again.

I would love to get a genertator down the road especially now that I got a little girl in the house. But one thing at a time its my first house and can only do a little at a time

 

[DJRansome]

Test your water to ensure the bacteria in the filters survived. You don't want the filters pumping ammonia into your tanks. Eleven hours you should be OK.

 

[dotbomb]

Glad to hear you power is back on!

Keep a close eye on the fish. They definitely were stressed during this, and probably still are. When you start feeding them again make sure they are all eating normally.

 

[AlphaWild]

Just thought I'd add my storm experience too...went 12 hrs. no heat or power, and all survived without backup aeration or extra water changes...even the small fry. Quite relieved!

 

[wakeupplan]

That's good to hear. Maybe I paniced just a little... but it happens :lol:

 

[Malawi Mac]

That's good to hear. Maybe I paniced just a little... but it happens :lol:

I don't think you panicked at all.

When your power goes out because of a storm, you have no idea how long it is going to take the power company to reconnect your power.

We had two separate incidents here in 2006 - a horrendous thunderstorm with strong winds in July, and an ice storm in December. We lost power in the July incident for about 10 hours. But many in the area lost power for multiple days. In fact, my mother-in-law came to live with us both times because she had no power. Each time the power at her house was out 4-5 days.

 

[TailorJay]

i had the power go out once with my fish. i didn't have to worry about them getting cold since it was in the summer but they all ended up gasping at the top of the tank in the middle of the night and i didn't know what to do! it was a very stressful evening. i didn't know what to do. it is nice to know that if that happens again you can do water changes to add oxygen to the tank...i had no idea what to do! it was a long night

 

[Lestango]

I lost mine for the same time, probably the same problem. Running anything off of a car battery inverter is not anoption when the temp is plummeting and 22 inches of snow is being dumped on us. I used my computers UPS reserve batteries to power my air pumps by cycling through my tanks-10 min. wait 5, 10 min the next tank, wait 5, 10 the next tank and so on until I ran out of power. I use a combination of air driven sponge filters and an HOB in all of my tanks. If you have a removeable wheel in the HOB, moving it to the tank is a great idea. Do everything to keep your biofilter from dying off.

By the time my power was restored at 4:45am my house was down to the low 60's and my water was also. I didn't do water changes since my heater is in my garage and adding cold water would not be good. Keeping up with water changes by heating water on my stove (lighting burners with a match) would be more than I could maintain with no sleep.

Insulating the tanks with blankets is good. Try to keep your fish in a low metabolism mode as long as possible.

My biggest questions were related to what to do when the power is restored. 60 degree air seems not a good idea to be pumped into my tanks. Should heaters be unplugged until ambient air reheats the tanks to the low 70's?

Finally, I have not lost any fish and hope you didn't either. I have 4 tanks of tangs and keep looking for stress related diseases, infections, etc. and so far OK. My 5 week old N. helianthus fry and even younger J. transcriptus fry seem to be fine.