Power Outages

[solarregis]

I live in Dallas and I have a 55 gallon aquarium in my office at work. This weekend, we are expecting a lot of wind and rain from the remanents of Ike. There may be power outages, so I was trying to come up with a contigency plan. My tank has 3 filters, a Fluval FX5, a Magnum HOT and a Penguin 200. I also have an air pump with an bubbler on it. This is all connected to a very large back up battery. If the power goes out, all of that will run for about 2 hours.

Here is my concern: if they power goes out for a day, there will be problems. Should I keep it the way it is now, or just hook up the Penguin 200 and the air pump to the battery? I get 14 hours of battery life with just the latter option. I can come in Sunday and do a water change to keep the water clean, but oxygen may be a problem due to me having 4 three inch fish in the tank and the fact that the water is 80 degrees. The Penguin 200 and the bubbler should keep the water surface agitated.

[snoopy65]

I would use a battery operated aerator. Walmart sporting goods has them for minnow buckets for less than $10. Set it up separate so that you at least have O2. My brother in law had to use one after a major house fire and it lasts about 3 1/2 days on one set of d-cell batteries.

[Weezer]

Good luck, hope things don't get as bad as predicted, the most important thing is to keep the filter media wet. having battery power is good, but if the power is out for longer than 14 hours you'll need to find a way to recharge it if possible, keeping one filter running may be enough to oxygenate the water short term, as long as your office stays at a reasonable temp, witch it should things should be ok.At least keep the bubbler running as long as possible.. just a thought....:)

[johnhoover]

I agree with Weezer, keeping the media wet will save you in the long run. I've had media standing in a non-running canister for a week and brought back to life without much of an interruption.

As an idea, you could take your media trays place them in your tank, place a 3-4" air stone under them and just power the air pump to lift water through the media. I always kept toying with the idea of building in tank filters this way but never did anything serious. I do know that two media trays from my fluval 405 will clear 1 ppm ammonia every 12 hours from a 20gal when sitting on the tank floor under an empty HOB. This was one of my own little disasters.

I've also heard of people keeping fish alive by pouring water through the HOBs every so often during power outages.

John.

[Mgamer20o0]

will you be there is the big deal? i would take the other canisters of and just run the hob and air pump.

[Draal5]

Run the penguin it draws like 5 amps and will run the longest off the battery back up. get a cheap battery air pump I have the one from petco it runs almost 2 days on a set of D batteries.

If it looks like the power will be off for more than a day take the media out for the canister and rinse it with tank water and put it either in the tank or a Rubbermaid container with an air stone

Good Luck and stay safe

[solarregis]

Yeah, I am going to be safe. I am in Dallas, not near the coast at all. We are going to get roughly tropical storm level winds, though. I am going to get the tank prepped anyway before I leave work today.

[mostlycichlids]

Good advise here, sounds like you have a good plan. Your tank and fish should be fine. If possible have some ammonia detox on hand to dose like prime or ammolock.

[jimmy mc]

I would do a big PWC and filter maintenance today as well as the other suggestions. Best to start out as fresh and clean as possible.

[Mgamer20o0]

lot of great ideas but since its a office tank and he wont be there a lot of thing things people said he just cant do...... hob and air pump is the best bet. if the power goes out you dont know how long it will stay down.

[TwoTankAmin]

I would use a slightly different approach. I would for sure use the battery powered pump for aeration. However, to maximize the operating time, I would not run the penguin, instead i would detach the bio-wheel and float it in the tank. If you can get bio media out of other filters and into the tank in mesh bag or floating if they are sponges, I would also do that.

The other issue is temperature. No amount of floating media etc will help there. Without knowing ambient vs tank temp I can't say if this will be a problem. One way to extend how long tank temps will resist dropping too much is to cover the tank with a blanket or quilt. This should drape over the tank so the top and sides are covered. Because you will be running the air pump, there would be adeqaute O getting to the tank.

Do a big water change as suggested above as well.

Good luck.