Sad day -- Lost all fish -- What do I do?

[RobG]

Some of you may have heard about the power outage in Chardon that lasted about 24 hours. I was out of town and not able to get my generator hooked up and started. Tank temperature (its in the basement) and dissolved oxygen plummeted, and all my fish (yellow tang, hippo tang, pair of maroon clowns, mandarin and neon dotty) all perished. What a depressing couple of days. I got all of the bodies except one out (can't find it) before they decomposed.

The only bright side is that it appears that all my corals survived and it appears that lots of starfish, crabs etc. made it. But, with no bioload on the tank, am I looking at a big crash in the near future? I've always fed the fish only, never fed corals w/ phytoplankton etc. Should I feed the tank? What should I feed it? I don't think I can afford to replace all the fish right off the bat...

 

[itZme]

That really stinks to hear! Sorry that you had to go through that. I had a 28 hr power outages recently and lost a few things but not nearly all the fish like you did. I try to keep at least one Maxi-jet on my computer's battery backup. Lots of people say it will fry your pumps/powerheads because it is not a true sinewave power source. I would rather burn up a $20 powerhead than lose the whole tank. It ran for about 12 hours on the UPS.
I also have a friend that left for a day and came home to a tank with no return pump, heaters or lights but luckily had a couple of Tunzes on another outlet and that kept everything alive.
Seems that as long as you keep the circulation going you have a lot greater chances of livestock survival. I know this won't help you this time but may help at the next (inevitable) power loss.

As for a cycle due to less bio load, I have never heard of lightnening the load having adverse conditions. I think you will be fine but after a couple weeks you will only be able to sustain the load you have and will have to add fish again very slowly or it will overload the bio-filter and cause troubles.

I wish you the best of luck restocking and hope all your corals and inverts are fine. If you feed them I would do it very lightly just to keep the crabs alive until you add at least one fish.

-- Kevin

 

[Sk8r]

Keep your alk and cal on target and your corals will be all right for a while. If you have other inverts, drop in a little pellet and the bristleworms will cycle it on down to feed the corals. Your sponges and dusters and pods will eat phyto.

 

[Burgman]

Hi,

You might want to consider a battery backup air pump that turns on when the power go off. I bought mine at Giant Eagle in their pet supply dept. of all places. It runs off of a C or D battery.

Dave

 

[carman9941]

I would also do some water changes never hurts

 

[itZme]

<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=7872916#post7872916 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by Burgman
Hi,

You might want to consider a battery backup air pump that turns on when the power go off. I bought mine at Giant Eagle in their pet supply dept. of all places. It runs off of a C or D battery.

Dave

Dave, does this thing have a plug that goes into the wall to sense the power failure or do you haver to be there to turn it on? Also, if you could give the name brand it would help locate one... I could hide a small airline and airstone in almost any tank.

-- Kevin

 

[tye_c]

http://www.aquariumguys.com/silentairpump.html


Looks like this should do the trick. On a larger tank I would use a couple.

 

[Burgman]

Hi Kevin,

Yes, it plugs into an ac outlet and senses when the power goes off and then starts bubbling away until the battery dies.
Don't know how long the battery lasts...................... Tye_C has it in the link, it's Penn plex.

Dave