Rooky

[longjohnsilver]

Done as much research as I can on buying and setting up a tank but there still seems to be a few obstacles. One of my main concerns is that nowadays power cuts are rare but in the last two weeks we have had two and one lasted 8 hours. How does anyone get over this type of problem. LJS.

 

[m00se]

Power cuts, as far as I'm aware, aren't that much of a problem (unless they go on for days on end). In any reasonably-sized volume of water, it should retain most of its heat for a few hours, certainly enough to keep your fish alive. Filtration will of course be off, but, again, the larger the tank the less that's a problem. Obviously, the smaller the tank, the more worries you have. If you're made of money, you could consider getting a UPS (uninterruptible power supply) but they cost a lot.

We had a power cut here that lasted most of the day and my fish were fine, I just did a small waterchange the following day out of sheer paranoia.

 

[longjohnsilver]

Power cuts, as far as I'm aware, aren't that much of a problem (unless they go on for days on end). In any reasonably-sized volume of water, it should retain most of its heat for a few hours, certainly enough to keep your fish alive. Filtration will of course be off, but, again, the larger the tank the less that's a problem. Obviously, the smaller the tank, the more worries you have. If you're made of money, you could consider getting a UPS (uninterruptible power supply) but they cost a lot.

We had a power cut here that lasted most of the day and my fish were fine, I just did a small waterchange the following day out of sheer paranoia.

Thanks for putting my mind at rest. Someone told me at a local garden centre that if I was out shopping or visiting for the best part of a day and had a long power cut I could expect to find all the fish dead when I got home and I wondered how everyone else coped with this situation. Thanks again. Am making plans this weekend to oder a 4' x 2' x2' tank/cabinet.

 

[lilacamy931]

Large bodies of water will decrease in the temperature slowly depending on the room temperature. If you have gas heating you can always turn that on. Get an emergency battery powered generator, get a UPS. The regular water changes to keep temp up is also good.I would not worry too much about this.

A absolutely emergency resort if you have a friend or LFS is beg them to temporarily house for you. Have read of people having contacts and having LFS look after for couple of days ( I have one friend that I hope can do this in my time of need)>

 

[waterdrop]

In a really long power outage one of the great things you can do for your filter is to manually change out the water every few hours. I found by experience that the bacteria could go for a nice long 5 hour stretch while I slept without a change but beyond that I don't know. With an external cannister filter for instance, you can bring in a largish bucket.. perhaps raise the height of the cannister a little higher but still significantly below surface level, then you put the bucket on the floor below cannister height significantly. Then you detach the output hose from the spraybar and bring it down to the bucket, causing tank water to siphon from the tank, through the cannister filter, to the bucket. Once you've drained more than enough water to match the volume of the filter, you raise the hose back up to stop it and reattach to the spraybar. Then you pour the water from the bucket back into the tank. What you've just done is to give your bacteria some oxygen and ammonia! If you are there and can do it, you could do this every couple hours during the day but as I say, mine did ok with a day or two power outage with a 5-hour no change during the night and the bacteria survived ok. For other types of filters like HOBs and Internals, its even easier as you just lift the filter above the surface, pour the water into the tank and then either submerge the internal or use a cup to fill the HOB with tank water!

Its probably a good idea to unplug your filter and heater in case you can not get to them right away when the power comes back on. You don't want there to be air at your impeller and for it to burn out because you weren't there to prime it. Also you don't want your heater receiving on/off surges over and over if they have trouble right when its coming back on as happens sometimes. When all is steady you can start these up properly.

~~waterdrop~~