heathlindner25
New member
Oh ya, my tank was trucking at 66 degrees, it's when it got down to 60.5 things started floating up to the top.
House got down to the mid 50's
House got down to the mid 50's
178 hours with no heat or electricity---here's how I got my tank through it.
- Thread starter Sk8r
- Start date
BrickFishHouse
New member
That's intense... Really. I'm sorry that you had to go through that.
But...
Thank you for posting this. It will come in handy for a lot of people.
But...
Thank you for posting this. It will come in handy for a lot of people.
Green Chromis
New member
:fish1: Hi all, Sk8r and anyone else who lives in a cold environment, I would definitely look into buying a whole house generator, or a least a generator large enough to run your whole system, a refrigerator/freezer and some type of heater to keep at least one room warm. If you also live in a remote area, you will need a fuel supply for a least 10 days. I lost power for 6 weeks after Hurricane Andrew, but our generators at the time keep everything in our house going including our central A/C. Everything in my system was alive and well when the power was finally restored. The house we lived in at the time sustained minimal damage as it was built to withstand a Cat 5 hurricane, just like my present house. Now I have a whole house generator and will never live in another house without one. :fish1:
heathlindner25
New member
Can I borrow some money...lol. On the wish list.
Green Chromis
New member
:fish1: I know the whole house generators are expensive, but how much do you already have invested in your reef tank, and anything else that can be damaged without power. I have just the opposite problem then the cold as, if we lose power from a hurricane in the summer, the heat is the problem, so I need a large generator to run my system, so it doesn't over heat. I also love to stay cool with the A/C running and my refrigerator and freezer running so my food stays good. You could just buy a smaller portable generator to run your tank and a few other appliances. :fish1:
66.1 to 66.7 is the range I would recommend for holding. At 62 is where things start to die. At 68 things warm up too much and fish start moving around and using more oxygen, which grows correspondingly scarcer as water warms. Warm water carries less oxygen than cold, and the warmer the worse. Feeding under those conditions is definitely out.
sharing is always caring Slipstream06
New member
What action does the h2o2 on tank water? Amazing story by the way!
Water is two h's and an o, ---h20.
Hydrogen peroxide (Latin/Greek combo adding up to water-stuff with a lotta oxygen) --is h2o2. So it has more oxygen than water, but if you put some on a cut on your finger, it'll bubble, meaning it's kind of burning a bit, or oxidizing. When you add it to water, it supplies more oxygen immediately, but you've got to mix it with regular water to take the 'sting' out of it for your critters.
It's a way of oxygenating in a screaming emergency, but must be measured and used carefully. If it plunged right onto a coral, it'd probably fry it. The mix is 1 tsp h202 to 10 gallons of water. 1 tsp to 10 US gallons.
Prime handles chlorine, ammonia, and nitrate. It's real good stuff to have a lot of. Even for kitchen and laundry use. Spill some Clorox on your clothes? Splash Prime on it. It might save that sweatshirt. Clorox smell on your hands? Wash them in a splash of Prime. Disaster likely to raise nitrate/ammonia in your tank? It's safe enough to use with fish and corals and inverts. Another of the same sort is Amquel, and there are a number of good brands.
It's also a good thing (I am no chemist, so I err on the side of nervousness) to separate doses of anything by a number of hours---to be sure the first dose is completely dispersed.
Hydrogen peroxide (Latin/Greek combo adding up to water-stuff with a lotta oxygen) --is h2o2. So it has more oxygen than water, but if you put some on a cut on your finger, it'll bubble, meaning it's kind of burning a bit, or oxidizing. When you add it to water, it supplies more oxygen immediately, but you've got to mix it with regular water to take the 'sting' out of it for your critters.
It's a way of oxygenating in a screaming emergency, but must be measured and used carefully. If it plunged right onto a coral, it'd probably fry it. The mix is 1 tsp h202 to 10 gallons of water. 1 tsp to 10 US gallons.
Prime handles chlorine, ammonia, and nitrate. It's real good stuff to have a lot of. Even for kitchen and laundry use. Spill some Clorox on your clothes? Splash Prime on it. It might save that sweatshirt. Clorox smell on your hands? Wash them in a splash of Prime. Disaster likely to raise nitrate/ammonia in your tank? It's safe enough to use with fish and corals and inverts. Another of the same sort is Amquel, and there are a number of good brands.
It's also a good thing (I am no chemist, so I err on the side of nervousness) to separate doses of anything by a number of hours---to be sure the first dose is completely dispersed.
Ron Reefman
Active member
Sk8r, congratulations on your survival skills. Without a generator that was some feat!
Being in SW Florida it only took us one hurricane to see the absolute need for a good generator. Now, once or twice a summer the crazy intense thunderstorms we get down here (Florida is the lightning capitol of the world) will take out our power. I'm willing to wait an hour or two, but then the generator gets pulled out and put to use.
And in the summer we have the opposite problem from you. Every day for 3-4 months our high temp is between 92 and 95 degrees... EVERY day. The narrow range of temps is crazy to me as a long time midwestern guy who lived with warm fronts and cold fronts that could change high temps by 30 degrees in 24 hours. Not so down here in the summer!
I needed 2 chillers when I was all MH lighting. But now that I'm all led my chillers hardly ever kick on. Even in the summer they only run a couple of minutes every hour during the day. But take away the whole house A/C (we run at 80-82 degrees) and the 92-95 outside air temps and the blast of the noon day sun and tank water is going to go up fast. So I keep the chillers and give thanks to the fact we have a generator!
Being in SW Florida it only took us one hurricane to see the absolute need for a good generator. Now, once or twice a summer the crazy intense thunderstorms we get down here (Florida is the lightning capitol of the world) will take out our power. I'm willing to wait an hour or two, but then the generator gets pulled out and put to use.
And in the summer we have the opposite problem from you. Every day for 3-4 months our high temp is between 92 and 95 degrees... EVERY day. The narrow range of temps is crazy to me as a long time midwestern guy who lived with warm fronts and cold fronts that could change high temps by 30 degrees in 24 hours. Not so down here in the summer!
I needed 2 chillers when I was all MH lighting. But now that I'm all led my chillers hardly ever kick on. Even in the summer they only run a couple of minutes every hour during the day. But take away the whole house A/C (we run at 80-82 degrees) and the 92-95 outside air temps and the blast of the noon day sun and tank water is going to go up fast. So I keep the chillers and give thanks to the fact we have a generator!
gone fishin
New member
Glad to hear that you guys and the tank survived the outage.
ZeeSparrow
New member
I'm sorry for your losses. This Thanksgiving we appreciated the electrical power so much more than ever before.
Our power was out for 2 days. We have a gas hot water heater so I was able to do two water changes a day - morning and night - for the freshwater tank. Along with regular dipping and pouring, there were no losses there. There were a few moments when a few fish in the reef tank were gasping near the top, but that allowed me to easily capture them and relocate into a smaller tank that I set in front of our fireplace. More dipping and pouring in that tank and they made it through. Surprisingly, my lawnmower blenny stayed in the reef and survived! I suspect the rocks retained enough heat to keep him alive. We borrowed a generator after 38 hours and at that time, the temperature in the tank was far too cold - 54 degrees. As for coral, most of my LPS seems to have made it through fine, including euphyllia, acans and galaxea. I'm not sure about my candycane yet. A short-tentacled plate and of course, the few SPS and clam, didn't fare as well.
Edited to add: Aquarium Solutions in the valley did not lose power and offered to hold livestock for those who needed it. A thought for us both, for future reference...
Our power was out for 2 days. We have a gas hot water heater so I was able to do two water changes a day - morning and night - for the freshwater tank. Along with regular dipping and pouring, there were no losses there. There were a few moments when a few fish in the reef tank were gasping near the top, but that allowed me to easily capture them and relocate into a smaller tank that I set in front of our fireplace. More dipping and pouring in that tank and they made it through. Surprisingly, my lawnmower blenny stayed in the reef and survived! I suspect the rocks retained enough heat to keep him alive. We borrowed a generator after 38 hours and at that time, the temperature in the tank was far too cold - 54 degrees. As for coral, most of my LPS seems to have made it through fine, including euphyllia, acans and galaxea. I'm not sure about my candycane yet. A short-tentacled plate and of course, the few SPS and clam, didn't fare as well.
Edited to add: Aquarium Solutions in the valley did not lose power and offered to hold livestock for those who needed it. A thought for us both, for future reference...
ZeeSparrow
New member
Neither of them lost power - their homes did, but not the stores.
