Snow storm=no power

Mr.Tan

Mr.Tan

New member
Welp, stupid snow storm today knocked out the power.. Its been off for 12 hours now and im becoming extremely worried about my tank, whats the likely
Hood of anything making it if it doesnt soon come back on? No battery backup amd no way of grtting anything to produce bubbles for oxygen in the tank already looked for battery powered air stone. Am i screwed or will stuff last? Im most worried about my corals (xenia, polyps, gorgonian and ricordea, torch coral)... !!!!?
 
pour water into the tank from the sump to cause aeration. Keep the tank warm by wrapping it with blankets to conserve heat.
 
If Temps drop below 67 degrees start worrying. You could slosh the water around by hand every now and then to try and raise the oxygen levels. Just don't stress the fish out or that will use up what little oxygen is in there at a faster rate. I only have a 40 gallon tank but I hard plumbed in a Penn Plax B11 just incase I ever lose power.
Penn Plax B11
penn-plax-silent-air-b11-air-pump~9720718.jpg
 
No sump so just water from the tank moving around with a cup? The temp is staying ok so far been checking that.. How long do things usually last for?
 
That pack thing for air is what i needed, stupid me disnt expect to have this problem in october so i wasent better prepared
 
Irene knocked my power out for a week and i thankfully had no deaths. The only difference was that the temp outside never got too cold so my temp stayed in the low 70s. For the first half of the week i didnt have aeration either and would use my net and a ziplock baggie (trapped some air in it and put it on the bottom and let it all out) a couple times a day. Finally, i used a bit of amquel to help keep nitrate,nitrite and ammonia buildup. I wish you luck
 
Get a gallon pitcher, stand on a chair, dip out and pour water in slowly: about 8 gallons pour in per 50 gallonage of tank. Do this once an hour, observing your tank meanwhile by flashlight. If you have an alternate source of heat, like a fireplace, take a plain rock of some sort, or a piece of brick: heat it up, then bag it in a ziplock to prevent it interacting with your tank water (not all rock is safe---but if you've got limestone, it's fine without the baggie)---heat the rock, then put it in the tank, and keep trading rocks, as it cools down. If you have no alternate heat source, your own body heat can help, but it won't help YOU stay warm: I'd save your hot water to keep your house pipes from freezing, and you might start a trickle going in each faucet to protect the pipes. You may be in for a largely sleepless night. My own tank can go an easy 8 hours with no power: I haven't tested it with anything else...but I'd start doing something soon.

An alternate method: if you've got a bubble stone, an airline, and a squeeze bulb of any size, you can use your foot, a rocking chair, or your hand to keep aeration going. I once did this over a 2000 mile car trip (with night stops at motels, where I could plug in) and got there with all fish alive.

FYI, a water temperature of 62 starts lethality for most marine tropic creatures. Cold, however, slows down chemistry, respiration, etc, and cold water retains oxygen better than warm, so your efforts at oxygenation are multiplied in your favor. Cold is, up to that point, your friend, much more than heat.
 
Sk8r said:
Get a gallon pitcher, stand on a chair, dip out and pour water in slowly: about 8 gallons pour in per 50 gallonage of tank. Do this once an hour, observing your tank meanwhile by flashlight. If you have an alternate source of heat, like a fireplace, take a plain rock of some sort, or a piece of brick: heat it up, then bag it in a ziplock to prevent it interacting with your tank water (not all rock is safe---but if you've got limestone, it's fine without the baggie)---heat the rock, then put it in the tank, and keep trading rocks, as it cools down. If you have no alternate heat source, your own body heat can help, but it won't help YOU stay warm: I'd save your hot water to keep your house pipes from freezing, and you might start a trickle going in each faucet to protect the pipes. You may be in for a largely sleepless night. My own tank can go an easy 8 hours with no power: I haven't tested it with anything else...but I'd start doing something soon.

An alternate method: if you've got a bubble stone, an airline, and a squeeze bulb of any size, you can use your foot, a rocking chair, or your hand to keep aeration going. I once did this over a 2000 mile car trip (with night stops at motels, where I could plug in) and got there with all fish alive.

FYI, a water temperature of 62 starts lethality for most marine tropic creatures. Cold, however, slows down chemistry, respiration, etc, and cold water retains oxygen better than warm, so your efforts at oxygenation are multiplied in your favor. Cold is, up to that point, your friend, much more than heat.
Click to expand...


Wow Sk8r, Those are some good ideas. I was just going to say purchase a generator.:spin2:

Well thats what i plan on doing when we build our house and i upgrade to a larger tank. I too have to worry about power outages during snow storms. So i was going to have a generator hard wired into the house to control the tank and frig, Maybe TV, microwave, oven, modem & router, oh and the computer. Holy crap im gonna need a big generator. Maybe ill just stick with frig and tank :hmm4:
 
A computer UPS can be used to keep some primaries going, such as heater and powerhead (for surface agitation)
I've got a 300w inverter with a large car battery for "in case of power fail" which can run all my pumps (for me cooling is a bigger issue then heating, it sits between 86 ~ 95 during the day, some days as high as 100) Its enough to keep me out of trouble.
 
I use power inverters, i have one installed in my truck so i just pull up to the window and run a cord in. handles 750 watts and only cost 80.00

Its the red amplifier looking thing mounted on the left side of this pic under the hood.
truck31.jpg


If you plan on using an auto battery indoors learn about the explosive hydrogen gas they can give off before doing it.
If you want to see how i installed this on my truck i made a how to on it 4 years ago and it's still operating just fine.
http://www.cryo-laboratory.com/foru...-install-inverter-into-vehicle.html#post92667
 
You can pick up a power inverter at radio shack for cheap. Depending on the size you get, you'll be able to run a powerhead and/or heater
 
Thanks for all the great information everyone! Especially you sk8r!

Bit of an update: still no power, been 32 hours now. Tank temp dropped to 60 degrees :( .. Thankfully my friend told me to bring my coral frags over and put in his tank, however the xenia is the only thing that looks the worst, its awful. I filled a bottle with warm water and put that in tank to try n warm it up and have been blowing bubbles in to keep it oxygenated. However its hard to do because i am freezing myself since its down to 50 degrees in the house, 32 outside.. All i want to do is sleep. My coral banded shrimp is moving slow and my only fish i can see are my two chromis, one of which is not looking good. I have a feeling my wrasse, coral beauty and strawberry dottyback arent doing good. I was going to take them to my friends too but his sump has a mantis and his display a mean maroon clown and damsel
 
A bait bucket battery powered back up from local bait store is what I got for air back up, inverter for heater or other for backup as well. Good luck
 
It's good to have battery back-up pumps as noted above. Remember that it's not enough just to have the pumps; you have to make sure you have fresh batteries for them too (a good idea to have a few backup sets of batteries as well, if you have the chance of having an extended outage).
 
Sorry to hear about your troubles. Sure was't expecting a big snow storm in October, but we got lucky here and have power. I did lose power during Irene and made it through okay just using a battery powered pump to aerate. Do you have any spare air tubing that you might even use to blow air through manually into the tank for short periods of time?

As for the temperature, do you have natural gas? If so, maybe you can heat pots of water up on the stove to help bring the tank temperature up slightly...?
 
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The sad thing is that people will read this thread and still not get a plan in place for their own system. I guess some folks have to learn the hard way. FWIW Im sorry for your troubles.
 
When my power went out i took tank water out of the tank into a five gallon bucket. I dont know if you have have a sink big enough for a 5 gallon bucket, but i put it in there and filled it up with steaming hot water and the water inside the bucket heated up. I repeated this several times.
 
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