The Power's Out

[J-P]

ohhh your tank won't crash ... that is for certain.

fish health is different.

what kind of filter? My HOBs need to be primed. Even when the electricity returns, they won't pump anything.

submersed filters are no problem

[Brent]

It's an external filter from Aquaclear I believe.

[Pufferfreak42]

Aquaclear won't start up again on it's own. One evening the power kept going on and off, I was awake all night worrying about the fish. When the power finally came back on for good my Aquaclear had to be primed. Good thing I was home to do it as the motor could have burned out. Once the power comes back on, you need to get someone to prime it ASAP.

[Brent]

I know it won't start again. When the power went of last time (only for a few hours), I had to run water through the filter until te cycle was started again. The power came on for about an hour late last night, but is off again until tomorrow, so mom says that we aren't going to go home until it's fixed. She asked Karen (she's been looking after our pets) to wrap a blanket around the tank, but she refuses to ask her to do anything about water movement / filtering.

[Brent]

More news:

The power is going to be out until at least Tuesday now, and you can't even get back to my area because Clarenville is supposedly closed off. My fish are still alive, but only just. Karen wrapped two blankets around them, and dumped some unthawed and jello-like brine shrimp into the tank for them. They were just hovering there apparently... Everyone is congregating at my aunt's house, as they have a single generator and have it hooked up to the fireplace in their living room. Karen brought my newt up to their house as well, but my fish are left to fend for themselves. I'm still hoping and praying for them.

[Myaj]

Fish are pretty tough, so they may surprise you

Oxygen will probably be their biggest problem, but it sounds like they are staying near the surface and if they get desperate will probably splash around some, which will help.

Its not ideal, but they can certainly survive. Heck, I had some fish get stuck in a shipping mishap.. 2 weeks in the sealed bag, 5 dead fish but one was still going strong and is still going to this day. I couldn't believe he survived being sealed up for that long, especially after the first fish died!

When you get home, your filter may or may not have restarted, Aquaclears you just never know if they'll hold their prime or not in a power outage. If it hasn't started, yank the media and rinse it out before restarting the filter.. and be prepared, if it didn't restart, your motor might have burned itself out trying to restart with no water in the intake. If the casing is hot, let it cool off before plugging it back in and seeing if it works.

[Pufferfreak42]

That really sucks, my heart goes out to ya Brent. Boy, I certainly do not miss Nfld winters. Those ice storms can knock out power for days. I remember not having power for up to 4 days a few times. At least it doesn't get down to -30 like it does in Alberta. I hope they all make it through this.

[hali]

have everything crossed for you xxxx

[Brent]

Well, all that's left to do is wait. Thanks everyone. (;

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It only... er... freezing rained (?) for a few hours, but where I live in a rural area it takes about 10x as long to get the problem fixed. Last year the same thing happened (thank goodness I didn't live there then) and the power was out for a little over two weeks!

[Nick]

There is actually a perk to the chill in the tank. Colder water holds more oxygen, and lowers the fishes metabolism. DPs aren't happy campers at, say, 65, but they stay mobile at that. So the lack of a filter is going to cause less problems as long as it doesn't get so cold as to actually kill them.

[Brent]

... I'd say it's about 8 degrees celcius (46.4 F) inside the house, as it's -1 (30.2 F) degrees celcius outside. So perhaps 9/10 (48.2 - 50 F) degrees celcius in the fish tank.

[J-P]

The coldest the tank will be is at dawn, and the warmest at dusk.

With the power out for as long as it has been you could be looking at 5-10 degree C swings inside

[Brent]

Mmhm...

[Brent]

All of the fish died... The two Algae Eaters, the two DPs and the betta. Dead. Gone. Forever.

The power came on this morning... The fish died last night.

[Pufferpunk]