178 hours with no heat or electricity---here's how I got my tank through it.

[Green Chromis]

Originally Posted by heathlindner25

Can I borrow some money...lol. On the wish list.

I know the whole house generators are expensive, but how much do you already have invested in your reef tank, and anything else that can be damaged without power. I have just the opposite problem then the cold as, if we lose power from a hurricane in the summer, the heat is the problem, so I need a large generator to run my system, so it doesn't over heat. I also love to stay cool with the A/C running and my refrigerator and freezer running so my food stays good. You could just buy a smaller portable generator to run your tank and a few other appliances.

[Sk8r]

66.1 to 66.7 is the range I would recommend for holding. At 62 is where things start to die. At 68 things warm up too much and fish start moving around and using more oxygen, which grows correspondingly scarcer as water warms. Warm water carries less oxygen than cold, and the warmer the worse. Feeding under those conditions is definitely out.

[borg]

thanks for the breakdown and steps you took to minimize the damage :P sharing is always caring :P

I know even losing 1 fish can feel like losing however in my eyes you had a win here

[twreefer]

Congrats on the effort! Buy your generators in the summer!

What does the hydrogen peroxide do?

[Slipstream06]

What action does the h2o2 on tank water? Amazing story by the way!

[Sk8r]

Water is two h's and an o, ---h20.
Hydrogen peroxide (Latin/Greek combo adding up to water-stuff with a lotta oxygen) --is h2o2. So it has more oxygen than water, but if you put some on a cut on your finger, it'll bubble, meaning it's kind of burning a bit, or oxidizing. When you add it to water, it supplies more oxygen immediately, but you've got to mix it with regular water to take the 'sting' out of it for your critters.
It's a way of oxygenating in a screaming emergency, but must be measured and used carefully. If it plunged right onto a coral, it'd probably fry it. The mix is 1 tsp h202 to 10 gallons of water. 1 tsp to 10 US gallons.

Prime handles chlorine, ammonia, and nitrate. It's real good stuff to have a lot of. Even for kitchen and laundry use. Spill some Clorox on your clothes? Splash Prime on it. It might save that sweatshirt. Clorox smell on your hands? Wash them in a splash of Prime. Disaster likely to raise nitrate/ammonia in your tank? It's safe enough to use with fish and corals and inverts. Another of the same sort is Amquel, and there are a number of good brands.

It's also a good thing (I am no chemist, so I err on the side of nervousness) to separate doses of anything by a number of hours---to be sure the first dose is completely dispersed.

[KMS.Kyle]

Wow.... And here I was worrying about a 6 hour power outage my building has planned in the coming month.. ...

Thank you for sharing - That was one heck of a ride.

Happy thanks giving and good luck over there!

[FortyFour]

Thanks for sharing!

[Ron Reefman]

Sk8r, congratulations on your survival skills. Without a generator that was some feat!

Being in SW Florida it only took us one hurricane to see the absolute need for a good generator. Now, once or twice a summer the crazy intense thunderstorms we get down here (Florida is the lightning capitol of the world) will take out our power. I'm willing to wait an hour or two, but then the generator gets pulled out and put to use.

And in the summer we have the opposite problem from you. Every day for 3-4 months our high temp is between 92 and 95 degrees... EVERY day. The narrow range of temps is crazy to me as a long time midwestern guy who lived with warm fronts and cold fronts that could change high temps by 30 degrees in 24 hours. Not so down here in the summer!

I needed 2 chillers when I was all MH lighting. But now that I'm all led my chillers hardly ever kick on. Even in the summer they only run a couple of minutes every hour during the day. But take away the whole house A/C (we run at 80-82 degrees) and the 92-95 outside air temps and the blast of the noon day sun and tank water is going to go up fast. So I keep the chillers and give thanks to the fact we have a generator!

[kmbyrnes]

Good job Sk8r. Must have been tough work. I know you are thankful this Thanksgiving.

[gone fishin]

Glad to hear that you guys and the tank survived the outage.

[ZeeSparrow]

I'm sorry for your losses. This Thanksgiving we appreciated the electrical power so much more than ever before.

Our power was out for 2 days. We have a gas hot water heater so I was able to do two water changes a day - morning and night - for the freshwater tank. Along with regular dipping and pouring, there were no losses there. There were a few moments when a few fish in the reef tank were gasping near the top, but that allowed me to easily capture them and relocate into a smaller tank that I set in front of our fireplace. More dipping and pouring in that tank and they made it through. Surprisingly, my lawnmower blenny stayed in the reef and survived! I suspect the rocks retained enough heat to keep him alive. We borrowed a generator after 38 hours and at that time, the temperature in the tank was far too cold - 54 degrees. As for coral, most of my LPS seems to have made it through fine, including euphyllia, acans and galaxea. I'm not sure about my candycane yet. A short-tentacled plate and of course, the few SPS and clam, didn't fare as well.

Edited to add: Aquarium Solutions in the valley did not lose power and offered to hold livestock for those who needed it. A thought for us both, for future reference...

[Sk8r]

Glad Aq Sol is ok. I worried about our local stores, and hope both are fine. And so glad your fishes are ok!

[ZeeSparrow]

Neither of them lost power - their homes did, but not the stores.

[chueu]

You sir are a legend. My return pumps Dc adapter failed and it took me a while to get a replacement. This and you story has motivated me to go buy a UPS, the type for computers and hookup my wave maker to it. At least in a power outage it will help for a while

[Sk8r]

If you can do nothing else, get one or more of the battery powered bubblers. That can help so much. Every one in our town was sold out. And get one (or more) that doesn't require odd, weird batteries or that relies on a recharge you have to do WITH the unit. The one I'm favoring uses common D batteries. In a marine tank, among other things, it'll help water turnover and gas exchange. You may still have to pour. And if you have one, beware of siphonage into your pump (which is not water proof) every time the battery runs down---put the pump higher than the tank or have a valve preventing siphon.

[CStrickland]

that sounds like no fun at all sk8er!
glad to hear your people family are ok, and the house is intact

[Sk8r]

Yep; we're still going to ask insurance to have a look at our roof---many in the area are very badly damaged. But at least we didn't have a tree fall on us. We're just really tired and sore, and electronics and plumbing are still giving us fits because of a week's shutdown.

[Sk8r]

I do hope, as a complete sidebar, that people notice that, despite just suffering about as much 'stress' as a marine fish can take---not one of my fish came down with ich. I call bogus on that old wives' tale, ipso facto demonstrato. A parasite does not and cannot manufacture itself in a tank that does not have it, stress or no stress. I'm not sure the poor chromis made it through the last night, but the threestripe is now out of the rockwork scarfing down ground krill along with the golden domino, and the corals are all looking good as well. I also happen to have some coral zooxanthellae refresher (Brightwell, I think) that I'm not sure does that much for the corals, but the fish go on the hunt for food every time I put it in. I'm putting it in.

[Irishman360]

Amazing story! I'm glad you shared your experience with us to learn from. Sorry for your marine loss! Again thanks for sharing with us!!

[Sk8r]

SOmething about horses and barn doors---but I was able to do a quick and pretty good study on generators. Here's the skinny.
1. if you have sensitive systems to power, like computers, routers, newer tellies and fridges, you will be better off with a generator with an inverter, which produces power about equal to the purity you get from your household sockets from the electric company.
2. if you want to power the whole house, a whole house generator can be rigged to turn on automatically whenever power goes out, to protect things when you're not home. This will be fine for most purposes, but not so good for really sensitive electronics.

I rely on a laptop for a living, and cannot heft a 170 lb full house generator, so this is our plan for future disasters. A Honda 2000 inverter generator, of the sort used in tailgate parties, 42 pounds, producing 'clean' power. I can keep laptop charged, bring the router up for the internet for specific jobs, unplug that and run the microwave to get coffee and hot meals, while using an ice chest for perishables, and meanwhile run the fishtanks and the heaters, running the lights intermittently. It's a bit of a merry-go-round of plugging and unplugging to stay within the 1500 watt running power of the generator, but it's way ahead of getting up every four hours to pour 50 gallons of water. And the generator-inverter is about the size of a small microwave.

I was able to get it for 100.00 off normal price on the Black Friday sale, and they are shipping it free. Home Depot.

[heathlindner25]

that's a great little generator and they're pretty quiet too

[ZeeSparrow]

That is exactly the generator I borrowed from my boss. You can also, if you find the need, buy a second one and link them together.

[Shawn O]

If you own your own home, and live in an area that gets down to freezing in winter, a coal or wood burning stove can also be a life-saver. Glad some of your stuff survived, sk8r.

[Sk8r]

Alas, I'm very allergic to wood smoke or charcoal. I do have a propane heater, however, which was a lifesaver, acquired part way through this. We now have a collection of empty 1 lb propane bottles which we have just found a recycler to take.