Entering Hour 12 of Power Outage

jalisco

New member
Been up all night keeping the guys in my 20 gallon garage QT as oxygenated and warm as possible.

Temp initially dropped from 79 to 74. The 2 litter bottle filled with 114 degree tap water didn't raise the temp at all. Siphoned off four gallons of salt water and brought it up to 114 degrees on the gas stove. Poured the water into a remotely plumbed separation take and let it overflow back into the QT. That brought temp up to 77 degrees. The tank already has a styrofoam lid due to most of the fish being notorious jumpers. I then wrapped the tank in a big thick comforter.

Every hour I've been siphoning off five gallons and rapidly pouring in back into the QT to create as much turbulence as possible in hopes of raising the DO.

I decided to drink all the cranberry juice and orange juice in the middle of the night to make more hot water bottles to float. The tank had dropped to 75 beore introducing all three hot water bottles. When I check on the tank the next hour the water surrounding the bottles was 84. After siphoning and dumping another 5 gallons the water is 77 throughout the entire collumn.

Is all this addicting more stress or really helping? All my reading last night didn't yield what a dangerous temp drop would be. I did keep reading that fish are sensitive to hypothermia but not what temp differencial can cause it.

Any advise? The power company estimates at least another 4 hours before restoring electrical service.
 
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Let the temperature fall. The cooler water retains more oxygen and stalls decay (ergo ammonia). It can go as low as 68 with minimal problems ---I held corals and most fish alive for 8 days at 62.1: worms and such may demise, however. Stand on a chair and pour water from a height into your tank, equaling tank volume, ie, 50 gallon pitcherfuls into a 50 gallon tank. Do this every 4 hours. Oxygenation is the big deal. Recommend Penn-plax backup bubblers if you face this situation again: Petsmart may stock them. They run on battery and make water pouring unnecessary.
 
Thank you!

I didn't buy one of those because my in progress display tank has two ecotech battery back ups. I figured the fish would be in there already. I'll keep one on hand going forward.
 
Power just came back on. Should I do a water change once the heaters restore the temperature? If so, 20, 30 or 50%?
 
I wouldn't worry about water changes beyond your regular maintenance, unless some water parameters are off. Glad you got the power back. That can be scary, but 13hrs of no power shouldn't be a huge deal as long as O2 is maintained.
 
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