My 1st tank has been up and running for 18 months. Everything was going beautifully. Lost all of my fish, a few corals, most of my snails, etc, in the largest power outage in the history of New Hampshire caused by a major ice storm. Lost power for 3 days during freezing temps. Got down to 9f degrees on Saturday night and never got above 21f degrees during the day on Saturday. My power finally came back on yesterday. There are still almost 100,000 without power in NH out of the 320,000 or so that lost power.
As upset I am to lose all of my fish, I have to be thankful that i didn't lose everything in my tank.
What I did:
I fought to keep some heat in the tank. The room stayed at 48 degrees with a gas fireplace running on the floor below. I Wrapped the tank in comforters, but not until I had gotten home from work and the tank was already down to 65 from 80 degrees. I had 1 heater and 1 powerhead in a UPS, but that was worthless. The UPS died in about 20 minutes. I brought the tank up to 69 degrees after I covered the tank, by boiling water and filling tupperware and floating it in the covered up tank. It was down to 60 degrees the 2nd morning, and I got it warmed up a few degrees, and it went down to 58 degrees by the 3rd morning. Had I not covered the tank, I imagine the water quickly would have gone down to the room temperature which was 48 degrees. So covering the tank with comforters, might have saved a lot of the survivors.
I did have a battery operated air pump that ran the entire time, so while that wasn't enough to keep the fish alive, it may be the reason I didn't lose all my coral, just lost the few SPS corals I had.
As a precaution, I changed out the two D batteries in the airpump after it was running for 30 hours, as I didn't want to chance that it would die in the middle of the night.
I charged my UPS overnight at a friend's house, on both the 1st and 2nd night, and went back in the morning and plugged in the heater for a bit, and then alternated with the powerhead, but again, it died very quickly, maybe 20 minutes. (APC 650 ES UPS).
I finally found a power inverter on the 3rd day so that I could plug in the heater, and alternate it with the powerhead, running off of the lighter in my car. They were sold out everywhere, and by the time I found one, the fish were already dead.
Tank was very cloudy yesterday when the power came on, but by last night, it was clearing. Skimmer was just starting to produce again this morning.
I tested Ammonia and Nitrites last night, and they both tested 0 - (Salifert Ammonia test was not totally clear, kind of a foggy white, not sure if it should be clear or if the foggy white color is a 0 reading). PH was good - 8.28 . I was making water to do a 30% water change, but it was still heating so the water change has to wait until today. I didn't want to rush the waterchange, where the parameters are ok and everything is already struggling. I feel like if I had rushed the waterchange, before the PH and temp was right, it may have made things worse, so I'll do the water change after work. Added a filtersock with carbon, which is when the water started clearing.
Losses:
Spotted Mandarin
Longnose Hawkfish
Bartletts Anthias
Wild Caught True Percula clown
Onyx Percula clown
Royal Gramma
Tailspot Blenny
Fromia Starfish
Green Monticap
Digitata
Superman Monti
lots of snails
Survivors:
Crocea Clam - WOW, this clam doesn't look phased in the least!!
It's as beautiful as ever!
Sabae Anemone - I thought it died and dissolved when I checked my tank yesterday and saw that it was gone. A while later, I found it behind the rock in the bottom of my tank, hiding. It's never budged in a year since I bought it, from the front center of my tank. He doesn't look happy, but I'm hopefull he'll recover.
I hope he doesn't take up permanent residence in the back of my tank!
Sandsifting Starfish
Sally Lightfoot - I wanted to catch this crab and give it back to my LFS or to another reefer. Bought it to fight lobophora in my tank. It did a great job and wiped it out. Wanted to get rid of him before he turns mean. Of course he survived and is scooting around the tank unphased!
One Scarlett Legged crab started roaming around last night. Not sure if the other Scarlett survived, and not sure if my Emerald Crab survived.
Two Astrea Snails and one Bumblee snail are alive. Maybe more surviving snails, but that's all I see right now. I don't see that a single Cerith snail survived. Haven't seen any signs of any Nacarrius snails alive.
Aussie Duncan Coral - Looks really good. Not open as much as normal, but I think he'll be back to normal in a day or two. Very happy as this is one of my 4 favorite corals.
Large Hammer Coral - Looks pretty good. Starting to open some. I think it will survive fine. One of my favorite 4 corals.
Frogspawn - Pretty closed up, but seems alive. Not opening at all yet but I think it will recover. One of my favorite 4 corals.
Suncoral - Looking very unhappy, and spewing some stuff. I'd give him a 50/50 chance of surviving. One of my 4 favorite corals.
Assorted Zoos - Too early to tell, but I can see a bit of color peaking out from the center. I'm hoping they'll survive.
Gorgonian - Saw one or two polyps come out last night. Hopefully it will survive.
Hawaiian Feather Duster and Cocoa Worm. Look sickly, but the feathers were poking out last night.
So, what can I do differently to avoid this in the future? I know that a generator would be the best bet. Any other options?
Is there anything other than the UPS that wouldn't drain so fast?
I bought at a battery that you can jumpstart a car off of. It said 40 hours run time on it, but my brother told me I'd get about 40 minutes off of it running a 100watt heater and a 6watt Tunze 6025. So that seems worthess to me too.
Seems ironic, with the amount of traveling I do, that I had a major catastrophe when I was home, and couldn't save the fish. I WISH I had thought to try to catch some fish and bring them to my friend's house in a bucket with a powerhead and heater. That never dawned on me until after they had all died. I also didn't expect the power outage to go on as long as it did. I've lived in this townhouse for 15 years, and I've never lost power for more than a couple hours.
One last question, do you think the fish all died from the water being 58 to 60 degrees for 3 days (they were still alive on the 2nd day) or from not enough oxygen? (one Battery Operated Airstone ran the entire time). I am going to add a second battery operated airpump so I can have one on each side of the tank. I don't think 1 did enough.
Thanks!
Pam
As upset I am to lose all of my fish, I have to be thankful that i didn't lose everything in my tank.
What I did:
I fought to keep some heat in the tank. The room stayed at 48 degrees with a gas fireplace running on the floor below. I Wrapped the tank in comforters, but not until I had gotten home from work and the tank was already down to 65 from 80 degrees. I had 1 heater and 1 powerhead in a UPS, but that was worthless. The UPS died in about 20 minutes. I brought the tank up to 69 degrees after I covered the tank, by boiling water and filling tupperware and floating it in the covered up tank. It was down to 60 degrees the 2nd morning, and I got it warmed up a few degrees, and it went down to 58 degrees by the 3rd morning. Had I not covered the tank, I imagine the water quickly would have gone down to the room temperature which was 48 degrees. So covering the tank with comforters, might have saved a lot of the survivors.
I did have a battery operated air pump that ran the entire time, so while that wasn't enough to keep the fish alive, it may be the reason I didn't lose all my coral, just lost the few SPS corals I had.
As a precaution, I changed out the two D batteries in the airpump after it was running for 30 hours, as I didn't want to chance that it would die in the middle of the night.
I charged my UPS overnight at a friend's house, on both the 1st and 2nd night, and went back in the morning and plugged in the heater for a bit, and then alternated with the powerhead, but again, it died very quickly, maybe 20 minutes. (APC 650 ES UPS).
I finally found a power inverter on the 3rd day so that I could plug in the heater, and alternate it with the powerhead, running off of the lighter in my car. They were sold out everywhere, and by the time I found one, the fish were already dead.
Tank was very cloudy yesterday when the power came on, but by last night, it was clearing. Skimmer was just starting to produce again this morning.
I tested Ammonia and Nitrites last night, and they both tested 0 - (Salifert Ammonia test was not totally clear, kind of a foggy white, not sure if it should be clear or if the foggy white color is a 0 reading). PH was good - 8.28 . I was making water to do a 30% water change, but it was still heating so the water change has to wait until today. I didn't want to rush the waterchange, where the parameters are ok and everything is already struggling. I feel like if I had rushed the waterchange, before the PH and temp was right, it may have made things worse, so I'll do the water change after work. Added a filtersock with carbon, which is when the water started clearing.
Losses:
Spotted Mandarin
Longnose Hawkfish
Bartletts Anthias
Wild Caught True Percula clown
Onyx Percula clown
Royal Gramma
Tailspot Blenny
Fromia Starfish
Green Monticap
Digitata
Superman Monti
lots of snails
Survivors:
Crocea Clam - WOW, this clam doesn't look phased in the least!!
It's as beautiful as ever!
Sabae Anemone - I thought it died and dissolved when I checked my tank yesterday and saw that it was gone. A while later, I found it behind the rock in the bottom of my tank, hiding. It's never budged in a year since I bought it, from the front center of my tank. He doesn't look happy, but I'm hopefull he'll recover.
I hope he doesn't take up permanent residence in the back of my tank!
Sandsifting Starfish
Sally Lightfoot - I wanted to catch this crab and give it back to my LFS or to another reefer. Bought it to fight lobophora in my tank. It did a great job and wiped it out. Wanted to get rid of him before he turns mean. Of course he survived and is scooting around the tank unphased!
One Scarlett Legged crab started roaming around last night. Not sure if the other Scarlett survived, and not sure if my Emerald Crab survived.
Two Astrea Snails and one Bumblee snail are alive. Maybe more surviving snails, but that's all I see right now. I don't see that a single Cerith snail survived. Haven't seen any signs of any Nacarrius snails alive.
Aussie Duncan Coral - Looks really good. Not open as much as normal, but I think he'll be back to normal in a day or two. Very happy as this is one of my 4 favorite corals.
Large Hammer Coral - Looks pretty good. Starting to open some. I think it will survive fine. One of my favorite 4 corals.
Frogspawn - Pretty closed up, but seems alive. Not opening at all yet but I think it will recover. One of my favorite 4 corals.
Suncoral - Looking very unhappy, and spewing some stuff. I'd give him a 50/50 chance of surviving. One of my 4 favorite corals.
Assorted Zoos - Too early to tell, but I can see a bit of color peaking out from the center. I'm hoping they'll survive.
Gorgonian - Saw one or two polyps come out last night. Hopefully it will survive.
Hawaiian Feather Duster and Cocoa Worm. Look sickly, but the feathers were poking out last night.
So, what can I do differently to avoid this in the future? I know that a generator would be the best bet. Any other options?
Is there anything other than the UPS that wouldn't drain so fast?
I bought at a battery that you can jumpstart a car off of. It said 40 hours run time on it, but my brother told me I'd get about 40 minutes off of it running a 100watt heater and a 6watt Tunze 6025. So that seems worthess to me too.
Seems ironic, with the amount of traveling I do, that I had a major catastrophe when I was home, and couldn't save the fish. I WISH I had thought to try to catch some fish and bring them to my friend's house in a bucket with a powerhead and heater. That never dawned on me until after they had all died. I also didn't expect the power outage to go on as long as it did. I've lived in this townhouse for 15 years, and I've never lost power for more than a couple hours.
One last question, do you think the fish all died from the water being 58 to 60 degrees for 3 days (they were still alive on the 2nd day) or from not enough oxygen? (one Battery Operated Airstone ran the entire time). I am going to add a second battery operated airpump so I can have one on each side of the tank. I don't think 1 did enough.
Thanks!
Pam
Last edited:
It by passed us and went for you. 
