Say some prayers for me guys!

Quick post because my phone is on 27% and I need to conserve my battery until later. We had a super nasty ice storm roll through, and knocked the power out in my entire area. I did not initially think it was going to be a huge deal, but the storm hit harder than was anticipated and now we are without power for an unknown amount of days and our house is 100% electric. Thanks to sheer luck i was able to buy the last 8000 watt generator in a 50 mile radius of my house, which my boyfriends buddy will try and wire up later tonight. We have been without power for about 16 hours and the house is freezing. Thankfully after the last outage in the summer I had battery powered air pumps around for the fish tanks, but no way to heat them. I have tons of towels covering the tropical tanks and the newts are cold water so should be OK. Fingers crossed the generator can be wired to the house because it's about 10 degrees outside. We also have a grinder pump so we will have no water/toilet use until power is restored. Yay.

Unfortunately for me I just got over $100 worth of very sensitive taiwan bee shrimp 2 days before the storm hit. I really hope they survive but it's not looking good. I may lose a lot of fish and possibly plants at this point. However my boyfriend and I are safe and I'm curled up next to a small propane heater with a book while typing this and my kitties are huddled under piles of blankets, so it's not as bad as it could be.

Keep me and my tanks in your thoughts guys! We need all the luck we can get!

 

Hope you make out good with your tanks. Do you have any kind of heat source to heat water other than electricity? If so fill empty plastic 16 oz bottles with the heated water. Maybe your water tank still has hot water. Make sure bottle is capped good so the water won't empty out in the tank or use a water conditioner in the water just in case. Put the bottles in your tank.to keep them warm. I did this way back in 1998 when we had a bad ice storm and I had no power for four days. Never lost a fish. Good luck

 

Good luck! Is there someplace you can go if YOU get too cold?

 

Oh no,best of luck to you, your fishies, kitties and boyfriend.

Hopefully they get that generator hooked up!

 

Hope it works out with your generator, my fingers are crossed.

 

Well we weren't able to wire the generator up to the house switches just yet, but we were able to run enough extension cord to plug in our electric wood burning pellet stove to warm up the basement a bit, out electric fireplace in the upstairs, and run all of my tanks except for two because I had to decide between the tanks or the fridge. Those tanks are unheated so I just have those on the battery powered pumps. The house is still only 62 degrees but at the very least it's staying that temp and not getting colder. I've seen a few of the taiwan bees so I know some survived the cold. In the dutch tank they are in I now have the heater, filter, light, and co2 on. However all the tanks are due for water changes but I won't be able to do that until the power comes back on. It's been about 3 days now with no power, supposedly they are going to restore it to my area tonight but they've been saying that since it first went out. All in all, the generator was the best investment I've ever made, and now I won't have to stress out about my fish when the power goes out. It will be even better when we hardwire it into the house because we are only running it at 30% capacity right now with everything plugged in. We could definitely run more stuff but don't have enough extension cord.

So far no fish losses, but my downstairs tank heater died yesterday so the pea puffers are just sitting there as the temp is only 60 degrees in there. I have tons of towels on the tank.

Thanks for all the support guys

 

Have you been using stored hot water from the water heater to raise the tank temps?

 

When you do get around to connecting the generator to the house be certain whoever does it knows what they are doing. The power company linemen will thank you for having it done correctly.

 

Hoping all works out ok for you. We got hit with snow but no ice.

Turned into a 4 day weekend.

 

Have you been using stored hot water from the water heater to raise the tank temps?

I haven't, the tank has already gone too cold to use any of the water. I would know....it sucks washing your face with cold water when you're already freezing haha! My bathrooms are ice cold currently.