weather trauma

Fish Dork · Post by **Fish Dork** » Tue Apr 17, 2007 10:52 am

So due to some extreme weather in our area, we've been without power for over 24 hours now. My battery backup for the filter only lasted about an hour, so I have been trying to manually circulate some water in my tanks, but unfortunately I had to come to work this morning, for at least a little while, and there was some sleeping last night.

The temps in our house will probably be mid-50s (f) when I get home. The 29 gallon tank was down to about 64 this morning. I have blankets over it, but they can only do so much.

My thought if we get power back while I still have live fish is to warm up the house first, but not plug in the tank heaters, so the temperature comes back up slowly? Does that make sense? How low can my botia striata go before I lose them all? There was at least one swimming around this morning, but he didn't look happy. Not sure if that is temperature or low oxygen.

With the fish load in my 29 gallon (listed in signature), how critical is the oxygen situation?

Going home again soon I hope, assuming there's not water across all the roads that get me home...

Jessica

loachmom · Post by **loachmom** » Tue Apr 17, 2007 10:59 am

Not sure about the heat situation, but for oxygen, I would pour tank water back in from a high enough distance to make splash. I would do this every 10 minutes or so, maybe more often.

This is only a idea---I've often wondered what I would do if we lost power.
This is what I thought of.

We heat with a coal stove, so heat isn't as much of a problem.

Hope you get power soon, and don't lose any fish.

Fish Dork · Post by **Fish Dork** » Tue Apr 17, 2007 11:09 am

Well, that is kind of what I have been trying to do with the water, but it was down to every 1/2 hour, because after 24 hours, your arm gets tired. And I had to sleep last night, and go to work today. We did hook up a power inverter to our car and run the filter for a couple 10 minute intervals, but I can't keep doing that either, so unfortunately at this point it's a "what will be will be" situation, which I hate. My family keeps pointing out that things could be worse, and I do get that. I haven't totally lost my perspective. The house is safe, we are safe, the cats are safe, but it's still stressing me out. I took responsibility for their lives when I trapped them in that glass box, and now I may not be able to keep them alive.

Sorry, rambling, but it's just frustrating.

Jessica

loachmom · Post by **loachmom** » Tue Apr 17, 2007 11:14 am

Oh, believe me, I would be frantic. I really like my fish.

I was only guessing about that 10 minutes---I really have no idea!

A lot of great ideas pass through this forum. Hopefully, someone will come along soon with more ideas for you.

Again, I hope it all turns out well.
Keep us posted.

loachmom · Post by **loachmom** » Tue Apr 17, 2007 11:23 am

This might be a really bad idea, but here goes.

Do you have water and a gas grill.

Could you heat water on your gas grill, then float containers of warm water in your tank to bring the temp up some.

Grasping here.......

Actually, I'm not sure what is worse for your loaches---low temp or fluctuating temp. So my idea may not be too great.

loachmom · Post by **loachmom** » Tue Apr 17, 2007 12:40 pm

Me again.....

Did some searching and this is what I found:

http://forums.loaches.com/viewtopic.php ... power+heat

Looks like the hot water in a bottle idea has already been thought of. I'm glad to know that it is a workable idea.

Martin Thoene · Post by **Martin Thoene** » Tue Apr 17, 2007 12:48 pm

Syphoning off water then pouring it back in from a height helps. We did this during that big East Coast power outage a few years ago. Only lost one large SAE. All the Clowns were ok.

Certainly, get some hot water in there to keep up the temp. If it's a 29, then you don't have too much to keep warm, but also it's not going to retain heat well either.

Martin.

Emma Turner · Post by **Emma Turner** » Tue Apr 17, 2007 5:01 pm

http://www.fishkeeper.co.uk/read_articl ... =3&search=

Fish Dork · Post by **Fish Dork** » Wed Apr 18, 2007 1:07 am

Thanks everyone. I did end up floating some bottles of warm water in there today to try to keep the temperature from dropping further. It seems like it got down to 62 degrees or so. I'm hoping that's not low enough to lose fish, but I guess I will find out.

After about 40 hours, we do have our power back.

I'm going with my plan of warming the house up and letting the tank come back up to temperature slowly, as I am afraid to raise it too quickly. I did turn on the heaters for a bit to take the edge off, but I don't want to stress the fish any more than I have to. Hopefully this plan will help.

I still have at least 2 loaches swimming around, and all my upper level fish are alive, though stressed. I don't want to turn on the light, but I will check in the morning for everything else.

Thanks for the support.

Jessica

Martin Thoene · Post by **Martin Thoene** » Wed Apr 18, 2007 9:10 am

Fingers crossed. Keep us posted.

Martin.

loachmom · Post by **loachmom** » Wed Apr 18, 2007 9:31 am

I'll be checking back to see how it all went. Hoping for great news!!

grizzlyone · Post by **grizzlyone** » Wed Apr 18, 2007 1:30 pm

It won't help for now, but I have a couple air pumps that are powered by 2 D Batteries. I use them for transporting fish...that would at least help with the aeration. I also bought several UPS systems (for computers) to plug the regular pumps in as well.

Kevin

Fish Dork · Post by **Fish Dork** » Wed Apr 18, 2007 9:34 pm

Ok, well, so far so good. I am so happy to have a warm house and warm fishtanks again. Everyone seems to be doing fine. I hope there won't be any unpleasant surprises in a couple days. Even my ancient white cloud is still with us.

I had a battery backup designed for computers, but it only ran the filter for about an hour. Somehow I was expecting more. Have others had better luck with these?

I haven't mastered taking photos of the aquarium yet, but here is proof of life. What a relief.

Jessica

loachmom · Post by **loachmom** » Thu Apr 19, 2007 5:12 am

Jessica,
So glad that you and your fishies are warm again. I learned a lot through this. I'll be more prepared now in case this ever happens to me. Emma's article was great, wasn't it?

Your loaches are so healthy looking.

Thanks for keeping us updated.

I hope you post again to tell us if your fish suffer any setbacks because of this. Hopefully they don't.

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