My fish survived a power outage

[elephantnose3334]

Yesterday morning, starting at 9:30am my home had a power outage because a crashed car felled some powerlines (thank God not our one near our house) near Garden City. The power outage probably lasted 3 hours, and all the stuff automatically turned off when it happened despite it was plugged on. I hoped my fish would not die without the filter on and they survived in my 10 gallon from that power outage. My home doesn't usually have a power outage, but it happened a few times before.

 

[TwoTankAmin]

A battery powered air pump is a good thing to have on hand. You cannot help with heating without power, but you can move water and oxygenate with an airstone. Here are the 1st 3 places I found when I search for them down under.
https://youronlinepetstore.com.au/products/battery-operated-air-pump
https://www.aquaholicsonline.com.au/air-pumps/battery-operated/
https://www.aquariumkingdom.com.au/air-pumps/battery-air-pump-aquarium/

 

[Mikeyboy123]

if desperate for heating in the event of a power cut, you can fill drinking water bottles with warm water and place in the tank. Admittedly, probably not that much of an issue if the tank is at typical room temp for a home.

 

[GaryE]

Mine have survived far longer outages than that. If your tank is overcrowded, fish die fast. But if you've reined your urges to overload in, they can go a day or two.

 

[elephantnose3334]

Mine have survived far longer outages than that. If your tank is overcrowded, fish die fast. But if you've reined your urges to overload in, they can go a day or two.

Despite it was overcrowded, they still survived the outage and the day after as of now.

 

[GaryE]

Outages are always stressful.

 

[elephantnose3334]

Outages are always stressful.

Did you had a power outage whilst keeping fish once?

 

[GaryE]

8 days once, in a Canadian winter during a full on natural disaster (an ice storm). 6 fish survived out of 40 tanks, which reached the lovely temperature of 1 degree celsius. The survivors were my favourites moved to a friend's 15 gallon. He had a generator.

I've had outages at 35 degrees in summer, and everything in between. Here, when you live around a lot of trees and there is an ice storm, we generally lose power for anything from minutes to many hours. I figure in 57 years of keeping fish, well over a hundred outages of an hour or more.

 

[GaryE]

I was chuckling in the darkness earlier this evening, as a transformer blew up the road, and I had 3 hours of sitting in the windy dark. My dog was not impressed with this change in her routine.

But this thread was timely.

But as usual, the fish are fine. The room temperature fell one degree in the fishroom, so that wasn't enough to affect water temperatures. All the fish are fine, but grumpy because the lights came on when they were asleep.

 

[emeraldking]

Yesterday morning, starting at 9:30am my home had a power outage because a crashed car felled some powerlines (thank God not our one near our house) near Garden City. The power outage probably lasted 3 hours, and all the stuff automatically turned off when it happened despite it was plugged on. I hoped my fish would not die without the filter on and they survived in my 10 gallon from that power outage. My home doesn't usually have a power outage, but it happened a few times before.

Fish won't die that fast. Especially not with such a short power outage. So, no worries...

 

[elephantnose3334]

Fish won't die that fast. Especially not with such a short power outage. So, no worries...

Hmm... I feared that they would die at a short amount of time, but they didn't. Lucky me.

 

[emeraldking]

When I was waiting for my new aeration pump (I air filter mainly), it took just over a week. In the meantime, those tanks had no filtration (only by the plants in there and nothing more). And all of those fish were fine. And I'm dealing with 81+ tanks to take care of. So, it needs a bit more before fish will die when a power outage is happening.

 

[elephantnose3334]

When I was waiting for my new aeration pump (I air filter mainly), it took just over a week. In the meantime, those tanks had no filtration (only by the plants in there and nothing more). And all of those fish were fine. And I'm dealing with 81+ tanks to take care of. So, it needs a bit more before fish will die when a power outage is happening.

Wow, that's a lot of tanks. I only had 1 during the time of the outage. I might get a bigger tank in the future. And no live plants, just fake ones.

 

[emeraldking]

Wow, that's a lot of tanks. I only had 1 during the time of the outage. I might get a bigger tank in the future. And no live plants, just fake ones.

Well, I'm doing this already for 50 years... I specifically breed certain species and strains that are considered being rare on the aquarium fish market. So, slight chance that you'll see them being offered at an lfs.

 

[elephantnose3334]

Well, I'm doing this already for 50 years... I specifically breed certain species and strains that are considered being rare on the aquarium fish market. So, slight chance that you'll see them being offered at an lfs.

That's much longer than my dad and me combined. Dad only kept goldfish during his time in Mandurah in the mid-80s. They never moved into Perth and died after a year. There was no internet back then. I have kept my tetras for nearly a year now.