How To Make My Outdoor Aquarium "hurricane Proof"?

[spaff]

Hi folks,

I've had a small (30 Gal) "bucket-type" fountain in my backyard stocked with mollies and platys for around a year. I initially started with 4 fish and over the course of a year they multiplied to more than a dozen. These fish were very hardy and happily survived through hot New Orleans summers and mild winters (I put a birdbath heater in the tank during the winter).

The fish had bread a third generation and all of the little baby fry were domesticated enough that they would eat out of my hand and swim into a net.

Unfortunately however, they were all killed by hurricane Gustav. I did a partial water change, dropped in a 10-day feeder, and covered the surface with a screen to keep the leaves out. I thought that they would be fine even if the power was out for a day or two because I had lots of plants in the tank with them. As I have now found out I was completely wrong. When I got back 2 and a half days after the storm I found the water stagnant and almost solid black. It looked like someone poured ink in the tank. All of the fish were dead. I feel soooo terrible that I made such a poor assumption about the oxygen levels without researching it on the internet first.

I want to eventually restock the tank, but first I want to make sure that something like this doesn't happen again. So sorry for the long-winded intro, but here is my question: What is the best way to keep the tank aerated during a 2-3 day power outage?

What I think I need is something that will run on battery (or solar?) that will turn on automatically after the power goes out and will get enough air going through the water to keep the 30 gallon tank aerated.

I've done some googling and found the following:

hurricane pump

Silent Air

automatic backup air pump

Does anyone have any experience with any of these? I think I could modify the devices myself to add bigger/more batteries to extend the runtime, but I am concerned that some of these would not do well outdoors when exposed to the elements.

Does anyone have any experience with anyone else? What do those of you with outdoor fountain-type aquariums do when the power goes out?

Thanks in advance!
-Lee

 

[Tolak]

Forget about the feeder block, this could have been a big part of the problem. Healthy adult fish can easily go for a week without being fed, I've personally had them fast for as long as 3 weeks. If it is an outdoor setup, there will be enough micro food for the fry, similar to a pond.

Leave the screen off, let the wind & rain agitate the surface, leaves & other debris can easily be skimmed off. I have a 150 gallon tub running in the back yard, it has been left uncovered during some pretty nasty storms. Nothing hurricane like, but enough to load it with leaves & smallish branches. I've also had the filter die a couple of times, home made job that needs a redesign. The wind rippling the surface was plenty to keep the O2 level up. Mine is full of platys, started with a couple dozen in spring, probably 100 fry, maybe 200, hard to count with the load of hornworth in there.

We have the remnants of Gus up here, nearly 2" of rain today, I had to drain a couple of inches off of the tub, it was nearly overflowing. You may want to drain yours a few inches next time, just in case.

 

[spaff]

Forget about the feeder block, this could have been a big part of the problem. Healthy adult fish can easily go for a week without being fed, I've personally had them fast for as long as 3 weeks. If it is an outdoor setup, there will be enough micro food for the fry, similar to a pond.

Thanks for the advice. Next time I will know that oxygen is waaay more important than food.

We have the remnants of Gus up here, nearly 2" of rain today, I had to drain a couple of inches off of the tub, it was nearly overflowing. You may want to drain yours a few inches next time, just in case.

Yeah I usually drain a few inches before any big storm. I remember one day during a particularly hard summer downpour when I got home from work and found that the fountain had overflowed. One of the platys and one of the mollies had been washed (or jumped) out of the fountain and had been sitting in the grass for hours. I dropped them back in and they went back to swimming around like nothing had ever happened.