jgoodstein

So as I am in the middle of setting up my tank it dawns on me that I go on vacation for a week at a time sometimes 10 days as well I live in south Florida... hurricane alley.

Well the feeding for 10 days is not to bad I can do that with an auto feeder, can I pull off no water changes for that long though?

As for the hurricane we can expect power outages of weeks ( 2-4) at a time. While I do have a generator I can't run it 24 hours a day for 4 weeks theres never enough gas. Does anyone have suggestions? ideas on how to handle your aquarium and equipment for pro-longed outages?

lilsoccakid

if u did a big water change before u left, the 10 days wouldnt be a problem. For the hurricanes, its fine to not run the filter at night, and i belive we have a member on fishlore who runs their whole house on a generator that turns off at night, and hasnt had a problem. as far as the heating goes, i think u might be alirght if u wrap the tank in some towels to hold the heat in.

im sure a more experienced member will post pretty soon!

COBettaCouple

Trust me - after a hurricane blows through, holding heat in won't be a problem. The hot, muggy lull that often follows makes cooling the water more of an issue and ice isn't available unless the generator was used to keep a fridge/freezer running.

Would it be possible to, at the start of the season, to store enough water to do a water change or 2?

If you could change some water and use ice to keep the water from getting to warm and run the filters some at least (keeping the media under water in the tank when the filter is off) - you might be able to pull off a powerless stretch of 4 weeks.

jgoodstein

Here's my current plan. After reading the forums i saw this is not the first time it came up so I figured I'd build off everyone else's info. I agree to the heating of the water vs keeping it cool. I do have two generators both 6500 watts that power a fridge, a mini window AC, and some fundamental electrical components. So I can actually get ice for parts of the day. I think I'll put the ice in baggies and float it in the tank until the temperature is within reason.

Step 1. Hurricane warning - Gather all three 5 gallon water jugs for fish and fill them and treat them with prime.

Hurricane hits ---

Step2. Use a power inverter for my car 400watts (my tank runs at about 350w with heater, pump, and lighting. run this during the day. and store the filter and bio-wheel in the tank during the night.

Step 3. Every day multiple times (2-3) take some of the water out and pour it back in aerating the water and tank.

Step 4. Use the 15 gallons in 5 gallon water change increments per week until power is restored.

Step 5. Reward the fish that suffered through the outage.

This is my new fish hurricane plan, coupled with my already drastically large family plan. Thank goodness we get warnings about this stuff.

IF it is a category 5 hurricane, I'm getting the heck out of dodge, any suggestions on how to take fish with you? when you go. If another Andrew hits it could be months till power is restored and given the current state of my roof..... well if a cat5 hits lets just say I'll have the ultimate sunroof.

Chief_waterchanger

Get you some fish bags and styrofoam boxes. Fill the bags with just enough water to keep the fish submerged and leave the majority of the bag with air (Do not blow into the bag, that is CO2, not O2). Put the bags into the styros and put the styros into your vehicle. Or for fish with barbs, spikes, bristles, or other sharp plastic bag puncture capable aquatic critters you could put them directly in a styro of water, or clean (not used for any chemical) 5g bucket with 1/4-1/3 water, with lid.

COBettaCouple

Sounds like a good plan. This is our first year in fish keeping so we didn't end up making a plan for the fish before we moved in September. We did end up having to transport our fish by car from St. Augustine to Denver and wrote up an article about it for the FishLore magazine:
http://www.fishlore.com/aquariummaga...oving-fish.htm

Evacuating for a cat5 is different than a move, but some of what we did to get all the fish safely here, including a couple sick ones, might help in your cat5 plan for your fish. The only fish we lost was a wild betta who jumped out during the 1st night of the move.

NOLAunderwater

I like to think my old Betta just swam away in Katrina and is now kickin it somewhere in the lake or something.

Thats my story and I'm sticking to it!