Power Outage, Please Help!

[joe17]

Allright so yesterday I got home to a power outage, with my aquaclear mini not working in my 10 gallon tank. The filter had emptied itself of water and the media was dry when I got home. I am thinking the power was out for about 5-6 hours in total. I tested the water this morning and these are my readings:

ph: 7.4
ammonia: 0.25
nitrite: 0.5
nitrate: 5
temperature: 79

Both my ammonia and nitrite were at 0 when I tested my water over the weekend. What should I do? All my fish seem to be doing fine and acting like normal.

 

[eaglesaquarium]

If the power is back on... just do a quick water change and everything will be fine.
 
 
If the power is still off... place the media in the tank (just float it) and do regular small water changes to keep it 'tolerable'.  Do good gravel vacs while you are doing the water changes to remove any detritus that you can.  If you have a battery powered air pump, place that into the tank to keep the water moving and flowing over the media the best you can.

 

[joe17]

allright thank you! the power is back on so I will just do a water change. Will this affect my cycle since the media dried out during the power outage?

 

[eaglesaquarium]

It probably didn't dry out at the bacterial level, just at the level that you noticed.  It should be just fine.  Keep an eye on it.

 

[Elrohirthehasty]

In the future, if this happens in the dead of winter and power is out a long time (days), don't forget to watch the temperature.  If it falls too much, be ready with alternate heating sources (floating water jugs with warm water, battery power, etc).
 
Depends where you live...  I almost had to resort to this once.