Help - No Heat In House, Aquarium Temp Dropping

We lost heat overnight. Our oil burner is not working at all, it kicks on but then turns right back off. There's no hot water, no heat, nothing. We have someone coming to look at it, but that won't be for several hours.
I have a 5 gallon tank with a heater, but the tank temperature is still dropping. I turned up the heater to 85F in an attempt to get it back up to temp, but it's very slow going.
Without hot water, is there anything else I can do to try to bring the temp back up?
I have a betta and two amano shrimp in the tank.
The temp is currently at 73.2F ( down from the usual 76-77F ).

I'm worried that the drop in temperature will stress, or even kill my fish.

 

You can try wrapping the tank in towels since it's a 5g. This could help slow down the cooling until you can get it fixed, you could also put an extra incandescent light fixture close to it but monitor the temp if you do.

 

Turn off the tank light, keep an air pump running if possible. And throw a blanket over the tank. Turning off the light reduces the risk of fire if you block the light from venting. It also helps distress fish.

 

You can wrap a towel or something similar around the tank to try and trap heat, and keep the heater at maybe a degree or two higher than what it's usually set to (like you already have)

 

Turn off the tank light, keep an air pump running if possible. And throw a blanket over the tank.

Just wondering why you would turn off the tank lights, wouldn't you want the heat provided by the bulbs?

 

Without hot water you can only wrap/ insolate the tank to prevent heat loss. Don't dump warm water in the tank when you get it back running, let it slowly heat up. The betta and shrimp can handle an occasional cold night without much problem.


Answer to your question about turning off the light, prevent the blanket from catching fire

 

Thank-you all so much! I wouldn't have even thought about wrapping the tank, I'll definitely give it a shot!

 

Quick Update: I wrapped the tank with a towel and that seemed to help it hold/raise the temperature. It has gradually climbed to 74.8F over the past 2.5 hours. Thank-you so much for the suggestion!

 

If you have any hand warmers that you shake up, you could tape those to the tank. You could also mix calcium chloride (rock salt) in a water bottle and put that in the tank I believe (with the bottle closed).

 

I don't suppose you have a heating pad in the house

 

You could buy a 2nd heater just be careful not to overheat. Hopefully you can fix this before any pipes burst [not sure where your at zone wise].