They survived a 3.5 day power outage!!

I got the power back on after 80+ hours down. I was terrified to look into my 65g and find nothing but bodies ... but they're all, mostly, alive! I'm so happy!

When the power went down, we immediately wrapped the sides and most of the top of the tank with blankets and towels. For the first few hours, we hand stirred the water surface every 30 minutes. As soon as the roads cleared enough to drive, DH went and got D batteries for the battery-powered air stone that we had for some reason I've forgotten. We got that going and then stopped hand stirring the water, and we covered the rest of the top except for a small gap for air exchange. We didn't want to lose anymore heat, so we just didn't look (or feed) for 3 more days. So, Schrodinger's fish. But, it's a pretty heavily planted tank, and it's understocked. The temp inside the house got down to about 58, but the outside temp never got below about 28, which probably helped. When the power came back on, we measured the water temp in the low 60s. But there were fish! We found one dead cherry barb, and we may be missing one or two more (they're really hard to count, LOL). But the Schwartzi corydoras, lemon tetras, red-eye tetras, most of the cherry barbs, and the kribensis are all alive, and seem no worse for the wear. We immediately did a 25% WC (that's the max buckets available) with 72 degree water, and we didn't find any more bodies. We did a another 25% today, and we'll do another one tomorrow, and then wait and see. (The tank has been stable for a long time, so I never bothered to get a new ammonia test kit when the last one ran out, but I'm on my way out to look for one now to see if I need to do any more changes than that.)

So, how long before we can feel like we're out of the woods on the remaining fish? The temperature is already up to 74 thanks to the 300w heater; I think it'll be back to 78 by tonight. Other than ammonia, the parameters were shockingly normal (nitrates about 30, which is about normal for right before a WC).

Is there some sort of backup power supply that will power a 300w heater and a HOB filter for, say, 72-96 hours, and that doesn't cost more than a few hundred dollars? Or is that a unicorn?

Anyway, thanks for listening to my tale; maybe this post will help someone else in similar circumstances.

Are you in a house with the vehicles nearby? I have small inverters I use overnight, only running the generator during day- evenings.

Excellent !

I'm glad your fish are all safe! We lost power for like an hour with this cold and our most pressing concern was my bearded dragon. Luckily the house was already pretty warm so an hour with no heat lamp didn't bother Sir Hemsworth.

davros said:

Are you in a house with the vehicles nearby? I have small inverters I use overnight, only running the generator during day- evenings.

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Alas, the tank is in a room at the back of the house, so quite a few feet away from the car in front.

And, I =think= the ammonia is OK? The degrees of green on the color chart are too subtle for me. Can someone tell me if this is 0 or 0.1? Maybe 0.5? In any case, the PH is around 7, so I don't think it's toxic, but it does need to be removed, which we're working on. The fish still seem OK.

Also, my tank is suddenly overrun with Malaysian trumpet snails ... where did they come from and why are there suddenly hundreds of them?!

realgwyneth said:

Also, my tank is suddenly overrun with Malaysian trumpet snails ... where did they come from and why are there suddenly hundreds of them?!

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MTS snails are nocturnal. With the power being out, the lights probably also went out and they came out from hiding. (MTS snails hide by burrowing into the substrate).
So they are probably going to get used to the lighting schedule here soon

I think if I lived in texas with all these outages I would've got either a generator or solar power
I remember years ago the power went out in Toronto for like 3 days in the winter
I used to have big batteries on my computers because I got them for free at work at the time
on that outage I put them all inside my room got an extra mattress and put my parents sleeping on my bed and me on the mattress with a portable heater warming up the room
the next day we got the generator from the garage that my dad used to have for some tools that would just blow the fuses if used on a regular socket
so we put the generator outside by the basement kitchen with a chain so nobody would steal it and 2 of those roll extension cords so we could at least keep the house warm...
we had other family members that came to sleep over because it was warm at our place
and my neighbors called the cops because of noise!
that's after coming over and asking how do we have lights etc.....jealous bastards

Rocky998 said:

MTS snails are nocturnal. With the power being out, the lights probably also went out and they came out from hiding. (MTS snails hide by burrowing into the substrate).
So they are probably going to get used to the lighting schedule here soon

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So what can I do to get rid of them ... and not bring back the black beard algae we were fighting several months back?

65 gallon (36" w x 18"d x 24" tall)
Current parameters while recovering from long power outage:
GH: <120, KH: 40
pH: 7 - 7.5
NO2: 0, NO3: ~30 (before routine water change)
NH3 > 0.1 (might be 0 but having a hard time reading the chart)

Current occupants:
7 Schwartzi corydoras (want to add 1 or 2 more)
7 lemon tetras
5 red-eye tetras (want to replace these)
7ish cherry barbs (want to boost to 12ish)
1 kribensis (might rehome her in favor of something more South American and snail eating)

It's pretty heavily planted, but in gravel. We want to change substrate to something more beneficial for corydoras but also for plants. If we changed out the gravel for something else, maybe we could get rid of a lot of the MTS. But what's good for both plants and corydoras?

kiko said:

I think if I lived in texas with all these outages I would've got either a generator or solar power
I remember years ago the power went out in Toronto for like 3 days in the winter
I used to have big batteries on my computers because I got them for free at work at the time
on that outage I put them all inside my room got an extra mattress and put my parents sleeping on my bed and me on the mattress with a portable heater warming up the room
the next day we got the generator from the garage that my dad used to have for some tools that would just blow the fuses if used on a regular socket
so we put the generator outside by the basement kitchen with a chain so nobody would steal it and 2 of those roll extension cords so we could at least keep the house warm...
we had other family members that came to sleep over because it was warm at our place
and my neighbors called the cops because of noise!
that's after coming over and asking how do we have lights etc.....jealous bastards

Click to expand...

I would love to get a whole-house generator, but they're way out of our budget for now. We've been talking about adding one since the 2021 storm, as well as installing solar, but those are really expensive out-of-pocket options, at least here. I was hoping for something easier and less expensive, but maybe that's just a unicorn. (Also, for most of my 50+ years in Texas, we didn't have these kinds of outages; it's only been in the last 10 years that they've been so bad.) We've added it to the long-term budget for now.

Glad everything worked out OK. Low stock levels and lots of plants mean you don't have to worry too much about filtration and your battery powered air pump will do the job - so heating is the only thing you need to worry about.
As to substrate I would go for inert sand - play sand is good for this. It won't directly address the amount of MTS although with sand the corydoras should deal with any uneaten food before it sinks through the substrate leaving less food for the MTS. The act of replacing the substrate means you will be throwing out a lot of MTS anyway.
Personally I would not bother about hunting the snails. When you think there are too many just go into the room half an hour after lights out and pick any you find off the glass. Typically I do this once or twice a year. As an alternative chuck in an algae wafer or lettuce leaf at lights out and an hour later they will all be in one place for you to pick them off.

seangee said:

Glad everything worked out OK. Low stock levels and lots of plants mean you don't have to worry too much about filtration and your battery powered air pump will do the job - so heating is the only thing you need to worry about.
As to substrate I would go for inert sand - play sand is good for this. It won't directly address the amount of MTS although with sand the corydoras should deal with any uneaten food before it sinks through the substrate leaving less food for the MTS. The act of replacing the substrate means you will be throwing out a lot of MTS anyway.
Personally I would not bother about hunting the snails. When you think there are too many just go into the room half an hour after lights out and pick any you find off the glass. Typically I do this once or twice a year. As an alternative chuck in an algae wafer or lettuce leaf at lights out and an hour later they will all be in one place for you to pick them off.

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Thank you, and thanks for the tips on dealing with the MTS.

Rocky998 said:

MTS snails are nocturnal. With the power being out, the lights probably also went out and they came out from hiding. (MTS snails hide by burrowing into the substrate).
So they are probably going to get used to the lighting schedule here soon

Click to expand...

I'd be netting those out while I could see them if I wanted to move any to another tank etc

A lot of fish (so, not all) will still do well after the filtration stops for a number of days. From time to time, I also put fish in another tank, container or bucket without anything in it. And they stay well for over a week.