It gets cold here every once in a while but usually not like this. I had ice pellets hitting my car here yesterday afternoon.
Cold kills 100,000 tropical fish in S Florida
- Thread starter IceH2O
- Start date
That's really sad however I am thinking on the good side of this cold snap besides natives being wiped out I'm hoping non-natives are worst off in this cold weather.
I think if you were to weigh in the financial losses due to death vs. costs of having a back-up or emergency heating system, not to mention the lives (I think we sometimes forget that before the $$$, these are living creatures), that I would choose the back-up emergency heating system. I don't know about Miami, but I do know that Florida's citrus industry is subjected to occasional cold spells on an annual basis. I know that there are still people who do not believe in global warming, but I have a feeling that these "freaky weather conditions" will become much frequent in the years to come. 
Ah...sad to hear about those fish. Can surely imagine a *********** not having heating-systems. Power backup is a given for any such shop, but heating in a subtropical climate is a matter of risk vs cost analysis.
Yes it's sad for the fish, but these people have a business to run, not some welfare organisation. They try to serve their customers with best possible quality fish. Their business maybe runs very small margins, so the savings of a backup heating is easily dismissed and replaced with an insurance.
Remembered a case of prolonged electricity cut-off in Singapore some 2 or 3 years ago, where many Koy/Arowana breeders where caught out and lost their live-stock. Reason? Believing that the all organized and perfect Singapore infrastructure would never go wrong...no backup generators in place and their stock went down the drain.
Yes it's sad for the fish, but these people have a business to run, not some welfare organisation. They try to serve their customers with best possible quality fish. Their business maybe runs very small margins, so the savings of a backup heating is easily dismissed and replaced with an insurance.
Remembered a case of prolonged electricity cut-off in Singapore some 2 or 3 years ago, where many Koy/Arowana breeders where caught out and lost their live-stock. Reason? Believing that the all organized and perfect Singapore infrastructure would never go wrong...no backup generators in place and their stock went down the drain.
Michael Breen, 43, fought for nearly a week to save Breen Acre Aquatics, his 10-acre fish farm in Loxahatchee Groves in western Palm Beach County.
But Breen threw in the towel Saturday night as temperatures dipped into the low 30s, realizing there was nothing he could do to keep the water at the needed 75 to 80 degrees. He valued his more than 100,000 tropical fish at about $530,000.
"I'm a total loss," he said.
But Breen threw in the towel Saturday night as temperatures dipped into the low 30s, realizing there was nothing he could do to keep the water at the needed 75 to 80 degrees. He valued his more than 100,000 tropical fish at about $530,000.
"I'm a total loss," he said.
This is extremely sad but the article did not say anything about the owner of the fish farm even attempting to try to heat the ponds he had?
If this is the same guy they had on CBS News Friday nite, they were hauling fish by the zillions from the outdoor ponds into a big barn sort of structure with something like horse troughs in it. Was just a mention in an overall story about the effects in FL, the main piece was about the citrus industry.
Heck of a lot easier to heat an enclosed structure than an open pond. In fact I have no idea how you would go about heating a pond even if you had more time to prepare. Read the Goldfish section about how hard it is to keep even a tiny yard pond from totally freezing over. These ponds had to cover acres, and would have to be raised to temps much higher than what goldfish can cope with . And probably shallow besides. Impossible.
If this is the same guy they had on CBS News Friday nite, they were hauling fish by the zillions from the outdoor ponds into a big barn sort of structure with something like horse troughs in it. Was just a mention in an overall story about the effects in FL, the main piece was about the citrus industry.
Heck of a lot easier to heat an enclosed structure than an open pond. In fact I have no idea how you would go about heating a pond even if you had more time to prepare. Read the Goldfish section about how hard it is to keep even a tiny yard pond from totally freezing over. These ponds had to cover acres, and would have to be raised to temps much higher than what goldfish can cope with . And probably shallow besides. Impossible.
When it reguarly gets very cold in the northern part of the state, they should have entertained the possibility of that happening. 500 k is a lot of money. 100 years ago is not that long ago.
