Coryd55

This morning I woke up to feed the fish and put my finger in the water and it was extremely cold. I checked the thermometer and it was in the lower 70's!!!!!! I looked to see if the heater was plugged in and I had missed it yesterday when I did the water change. I didn't realize last night because I didn't check the thermometer and the water didn't feel cold. I plugged the heater back in, opened the curtains, turned off my fan, closed my door, and wrapped the tank in 2 layers of blankets. I will take all of this off once it goes back up into the 80's. No dead fish, thank god. If I hadn't noticed it this morning my whole tank prolly would have died by tonight, with the temperatures dropping into the 60s.

Dino

It happens to us all, Cory.

I am just glad you caught it before anything adverse happened.

voiceless_kat

Don't feel bad Cory.....for sure we all make mistakes. Great that you found it and got evertyhing back on track without losing any fish.

I have found that there is bright side to making mistakes in fishkeeping (hopefully the mistakes weren't costly)..you will be double checking everything and it won't happen again.

Good luck with your tanks, I am enjoying following your progress|||||||!

Val

jsalemi

That's why I keep everything for the tank on one timered power strip -- throw the switch to turn everything off for the water change, then throw it back to turn everything on when it's done. The lack of light or hearing the filters running is a good reminder that I didn't turn it back on.

susitna-flower

A power strip does help, as many others here have found out, if you set it up in a way that eliminates having to remember except for the obvious, it cuts the headaches.

Now I talk from that side of 50 where you have to start writing notes to yourself and everything......My first disaster with a water change was that I DIDN'T unplug the heater, so when the water got down it was running, and when the cooler water hit it, the heater shattered!!! So your woops was much less of a problem. I'm glad the fish are OK.

Butterfly

Your gaining experience cory Now when somebody else says they did that you can chime in and tell what happened when you did that glad every one is ok.
I doubt they would have died but you might have gotten a good case of ICK( usually caused from chilling) but keeping the temps in the 80's will prevent that.
carol

JMatt1983

don't feel too bad, i've done that a few times.


just another tip though, don't wrap your tank in blankets if its already cold, a blanket is an insulator, for both hot and cold, it will hold inthe cold longer than if you just let the roomwarm up the tank

Coryd55

Oh alright
Well the tank eventually got back up at about 5 or 6 this evening so its all good now =). The fish are much more active as well.

tkfury

On top of the power stripe - I always write down a step by step list of what I need to do for each tank the night before. I get so bored at night so I end up going into as much detail as possible that even my brother would beable to do the maintance with no problem. I'm usually not much of a do to lister but when it comes to the possible life and death of my dear pets I think I go over board ^_~

COBettaCouple

I'm glad to hear that the fish all made it.

Having each tank on a power strip is what we do, so if I need to turn the heater off, I turn off everything.