Coryd55

What happens when the power goes out for long periods of time? How badly will it affect your fish?

neverendingninja

The best thing to do in that scenario is to have a battery powered airpump/stone. When it comes to temperature, thats a bit trickier. If its hot when the power goes out, you can add some ice cubes in a ziplock baggie and let them float around to cool the water off, but I don't know of any way to heat the water if the power is out. :/

sgould

Fill a plastic bottle or two with hot water and float them just like the baggies.

Coryd55

Alright thanks

Kurt

It may not work for large tanks; but, I have a UPS on my 20-gallon tank and it lasted over an hour during one outage during one of the storms in the area. I picked a few up for around $25 each clearanced at Wal-Mart one time.

Chief_waterchanger

If you use gas-stoves like we do you could turn it on full blast and leave it open. (Bad if any small children can get to it, or pets, and always try to have it in a large area or ventilate it in some way.)

Dino

We have a gas powered generator here.
It is enough to run the heat and the blower to keep the inflatable window closed during the winter or the exhaust fan going in the summer.

Coryd55

We don't have gas but the Computer Battery backup should work and if I cant find one of those hot water in a bottle should be alright for the short outages we have. The most the powers every gone out for here was like 5 hours and hat was during one of the hurricanes. (GA)

Dino

We had a three day outage back in 1991 during a blizzard.
We reheated the tank water on a gas stove.
With me and my parents doing so, we only lost 1 fish out of 12 tanks.

lyndatu

During power outages, I take the tube from the air pump and blow! I don't want my fish to lose oxygen!



Yes, there are some battery-powered filters and airstones, but watch out for the price tag! If you couldn't afford some, come and blow the fish tube with me! Come on! BLOW!

Just Kidding!

Peterpiper

We lost power last year for 2 days. at the end of the first day we went and got a gen set to run fridge etc (and the TV) now it sits in the shed waiting for the power to go out.. But when the power cuts out. the first thing to get power..... the fridge(for the beer) then the aquarium

Chief_waterchanger

Erm. Blowing into something you are pushing mostly CO2, not oxygen. That's why its a bad idea to blow into fishbags by mouth when bagging fish. (it is good to blow into the bags for plants though. )

Basically losing power sucks, and if you are on electric heat sources it sucks worse, especially if you do not have a generator.

Interesting to hear all the ideas.

Amnagrla

In the dorms we loose power a LOT... unfortunately. I know it sounds silly but I do the hot bottle thing and also wrap a heavy blanket around the tank. I leave some holes for air to get in.

For hot weather, I do the ice cubes in a ziplock baggie.

However, I had my tank start a syphon once with a power outage. We lost power and the air stopping started a syphon through the air tubes and water was leaking right out of my tank!!!! It got to be about 1/3 empty before I came back home. Since then I got an anti-syphon contraption lol. It hangs on my tank and all the air hoses hook up to it. As long as the air pumps through, the little red balls stay up. When the air stops, the balls drop and so the water can't get through!!

Coryd55

Haha. Blowing CO2 into what should be oxygen....hmmmmmm lol

Dino

Thats why it helps, if possible, to place your air pumps above the tanks, so that you do not get the syphon effect.

COBettaCouple

Sounds like a gang-valve? yea, we run the air through those and/or check valves and like Dino said, put them above the tanks when we're able to and fortunately haven't had a water backup happen.