Caring for fish in a power outage!

[Rocky998]

On Saturday we are supposed to have snow... In our area, when it snows power goes out for a few minutes, all the way to a few hours. I just want to know what to do if a power outage happens.

 

[OldTimeFisher]

Get yourself a battery operated air pump. Most of them come with air tubing and a air stone. The ones that I have use size D batteries. You can buy them from Amazon fairly cheap.

 

[Rocky998]

Get yourself a battery operated air pump. Most of them come with air tubing and a air stone. The ones that I have use size D batteries. You can buy them from Amazon fairly cheap.

I will have to check those out... Thanks!

 

[outofwater]

I'm more worried about the heater than aeration, got to think about that earlier today when I heard on the radio that we might go into "rolling blackouts" here sometime in the near future, we've gone so "green" that power generation capacity might not be enough. What an absolute circus.

 

[itiwhetu]

Cover the whole tank in some heavy blankets

 

[Rocky998]

Cover the whole tank in some heavy blankets

Ok! I will definitely do that if power goes out. Thanks

 

[Colin_T]

INSULATING THE TANK
Use 1-2 inch thick polystyrene foam sheets and tape them to the back and sides of the tank. Have foam under the tank too.

Have a coverglass on top of the tank to trap heat. Use 4, 5 or 6mm thick glass because it is less likely to chip or crack.

When the power goes out, stick another sheet of polystyrene foam on the front and top of the tank. If you don't have foam, use a blanket or towels. Just make sure they don't come in contact with the water because they can wick water out of the tank. And be careful putting materials or anything on hot light units because they might burn.

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LEADING UP TO THE POWER FAILURE
If there is a chance of a power failure in the next few days, clean the filter now so it is clean. Squeeze filter media out in a bucket of tank water and re-use the media. The less gunk in the filter, the more oxygen there is for the good bacteria.

Do a water change and gravel clean too. Again, the less gunk in the tank, the more oxygen for the fish.

Try to warm the room up and have doors and windows shut to stop cold air getting in. If you normally have the house on 24C, increase the temperature by a few degrees so it is warmer when the power failure occurs. Then it will take a bit longer for the tank and house to get cold.

-----------------
FILTER MEDIA
If the power is going to be off for a while and you have an external canister filter, you can take the outlet hose and put it in a bucket to let aquarium water flow through the filter and replace the water in the filter with clean oxygenated water. Pour the bucket of filter back into the tank. Do this every 30-60 minutes.

If you have a HOB filter, you can take a container of water from the tank and pour it into the filter to provide oxygenated water to that.

You can also take the filter media out of the filter and put it in the aquarium. When the power comes back on you can move the media back into the tank.

-----------------
BATTERY AIR PUMPS
And battery powered air pumps are great. Don't use the normal sand airstones on them because they put a lot of pressure on the pump and flatten the battery. Either use a plastic multi-coloured airstone that can be taken apart and cleaned, or don't use any airstone and just have the air line blowing big bubbles.

 

[GaryE]

Dollar store space blankets all around. the tank temp falls quickly for the first few degrees, then it's a very slow slide. Cover the tank, and don't peek.

Battery air pumps are good, as others have noted, especially if you're overstocked. But as a Canadian fishkeeper, I don't worry about power blackouts until they reach 4-5 hours and beyond. 24 hours is stressful, but if you lose power with every snow, it's probably not going to be that cold or you'd be living in the dark. We're going to -25c tonight with a wind-chill in the mid minus thirties, and I wouldn't worry for a couple of hours if we lost power.

 

[Rocky998]

Have foam under the tank too.

Really? ReAlLy? REALLY? I wanna see you do that

 

[Rocky998]

INSULATING THE TANK
Use 1-2 inch thick polystyrene foam sheets and tape them to the back and sides of the tank. Have foam under the tank too.

Have a coverglass on top of the tank to trap heat. Use 4, 5 or 6mm thick glass because it is less likely to chip or crack.

When the power goes out, stick another sheet of polystyrene foam on the front and top of the tank. If you don't have foam, use a blanket or towels. Just make sure they don't come in contact with the water because they can wick water out of the tank. And be careful putting materials or anything on hot light units because they might burn.

-----------------
LEADING UP TO THE POWER FAILURE
If there is a chance of a power failure in the next few days, clean the filter now so it is clean. Squeeze filter media out in a bucket of tank water and re-use the media. The less gunk in the filter, the more oxygen there is for the good bacteria.

Do a water change and gravel clean too. Again, the less gunk in the tank, the more oxygen for the fish.

Try to warm the room up and have doors and windows shut to stop cold air getting in. If you normally have the house on 24C, increase the temperature by a few degrees so it is warmer when the power failure occurs. Then it will take a bit longer for the tank and house to get cold.

-----------------
FILTER MEDIA
If the power is going to be off for a while and you have an external canister filter, you can take the outlet hose and put it in a bucket to let aquarium water flow through the filter and replace the water in the filter with clean oxygenated water. Pour the bucket of filter back into the tank. Do this every 30-60 minutes.

If you have a HOB filter, you can take a container of water from the tank and pour it into the filter to provide oxygenated water to that.

You can also take the filter media out of the filter and put it in the aquarium. When the power comes back on you can move the media back into the tank.

-----------------
BATTERY AIR PUMPS
And battery powered air pumps are great. Don't use the normal sand airstones on them because they put a lot of pressure on the pump and flatten the battery. Either use a plastic multi-coloured airstone that can be taken apart and cleaned, or don't use any airstone and just have the air line blowing big bubbles.

Dollar store space blankets all around. the tank temp falls quickly for the first few degrees, then it's a very slow slide. Cover the tank, and don't peek.

Battery air pumps are good, as others have noted, especially if you're overstocked. But as a Canadian fishkeeper, I don't worry about power blackouts until they reach 4-5 hours and beyond. 24 hours is stressful, but if you lose power with every snow, it's probably not going to be that cold or you'd be living in the dark. We're going to -25c tonight with a wind-chill in the mid minus thirties, and I wouldn't worry for a couple of hours if we lost power.

Thank you both for all that helpful information!

 

[enricosonic]

Your thread makes me wonder why is there no battery-operated heater in the event of power outages? I understand they'd draw far more power than an air pump, but with the advances in lithium batteries in some heavy duty power tools, I would think this would be possible, at least for the short term.

 

[itiwhetu]

Really? ReAlLy? REALLY? I wanna see you do that

All my tanks sit on 1 inch high density polystyrene.

 

[TwoTankAmin]

The biggest worry with a power outage in a snow storm is not the aeration, it is the temperature. Unless you are heating you place using a wood burning stove an outage of any length of time will drop the temperature pretty fast. Still having battery powered air pumps is a good idea because not all outages last a long time and are not always when it is freezing cold.

I breed a bunch of rare and very expensive plecos. Years ago I was fortunate to be able to afford to put in a whole house back-up generator. But the major motivation is we were caring for mom who had dementia and she could not live in a freezing or extremely hot house. That combined with the value of the fish made it essential to have this back-up.

In the two hurricanes that hit here in 2011 and 2012 we had no electric service for 13 days both times. Our generator proved to be worth every dollar we spent for it.

I do summer tanks which I set up in late may to early Jubene and take them down when the nightime temps get much below 55F (13C) I can manage one night in the high 40s if it is an abertion. But i cannot fight the sub 55s consistently. I normally have 10 wpg of heaters. No amount of styro will work and since the sustem us air sriven I am putting very cool air into the tank.

Finally, I have 20 tanks in two buildings and 4 rooms. Styro isn't in the realm of possibility.

 

[outofwater]

All the little things we take for granted, huh. Very interesting thread and great suggestions by everyone. Thank you.

 

[Colin_T]

Really? ReAlLy? REALLY? I wanna see you do that

You should have foam under the tank before you set the tank up.