Power Outage Questions

[Aries]

Ok, my tank was without power for 8.5 days and little natural light (patio door 3 meters away at 45 degree angle evening sun). During this time I did not feed them as I was afraid of polluting the water too much. Did not have access to RO water for 2 days as the power to the pumping stations was out too. I could not mix the water either as I could not heat or mix the water.

All in all, the tank is in better condition than before. All the fish survived and both the main and sump look better (was dealing with a slime issue - getting rid of my natural means). The star is a little thin but eating well now (manually fed 2-3 week usually). Most of the slime is gone (black out method I presume).

First, I was under the impression sw fish dont last long with out filtration/water movement - or is it just certain fish and my selections are hardy?

Next, With this load, do I need to keep the sump? Since they were disconnected, it seemed they did better - but am I wrong? I built the sump with the understanding more sw the better.

Third, I thought I had lost my polyps due to some odd reason (my guess is the slime) because they would not come out for days. But I left the frag in there anyway. This was my first step into coral (well polyps really to see I can keep them). Well, during this time, they grew back (with little light mind you) two fold. Why?

More, should I have done a water change if levels got out of hand? The water would have same temp but maybe not fully mixed? Levels are fine now and did not peak high during the outage (maybe because I did not feed).

Thank you and I know I wrote a lot, but I am curious as to why my tank survived 100% and then some.

Inhabitants
Clown Fish (occelaris)
Dart Fish (aka FireFish)
Yellow Goby
Sand Sifter Star
Hermit Crabs
Mexican Turbo Snail
Astrea and Nassarius Snails
Green Dot Daisy Polyps

Specs
30G 3 3 power heads, 5" DSB, 80lbs LR, 175W MH
29G Sump, 2 small power heads, Coralife PS, 2 150W heaters, Mag 5 Return, 45W CF

 

[kcress]

I love it.

Don't know what to say - but I love it!

 

[Catpicklesdog]

Fantastic story. You obviously have some tough fish in there. It's probably all down to the fact that you had healthy, fit fish before the outage and that is all down to your care. You should be patting yourself on the back. I thought I did well keeping my tank alive after a 24hr outage!!!

Even with a low load, I'd personally still keep the sump. It helps hide equipment such as heaters and skimmers etc but also increases the water volume and you can never have too much water (unless it's on your lounge floor when your tank leaks!!!).

As for your polyps, they were probably sulking. Mine are still sulking 2 weeks after having my tank resealed and I'm not worried about them yet!!!

I think not feeding your fish certainly helped with your water conditins. The fish may not agree but, hey, they're alive!!!

All in all I think you've done well having no casualties!

 

[mandy21]

I'm up a little north of you in Ohio and was only out of power for almost exactly 24 hours. I had my prized potter's angel and chalk bass die in the matter of 5 hours (both happened to be in the same tank. A juvenile majestic angel and black footed clown also in the tank were also on their way out but I did an emergency scoop and toss into another tank. All other fish were fine. I added 2 battery operated air pumps to 2 other tanks that could not have done much. I have no idea why there was a huge difference.

It also defies all that I know to have all your stuff live without so much as water movement for that long as I thought that was what did my 2 fish in (but there was the same movement in the other tanks - none). I am certainly happy to hear that all is well. I would have died of stress worrying about my tanks after that long without power!

 

[Aries]

I am baffled too! I hear all these horror stories about fish dying hours after power outage and thought "well my fish are toast!" But apparently these species are VERY hardy. It just seemed my tank was the antithesis of everyones experience. I just thought maybe someone could pin point this is why. I did absolutely nothing to the tank as I did not know what to do. Well, my wife did talk to the fish - does that help?

Oooh - and a substation just blew up too so we are out of power - AGAIN! Sheesh.

 

[jayghmi]

That is wild, please keep us informed.

 

[Aries]

Well the substation is still down - seems like maybe a critter got into a transformer and caused a fire thus shutting down that substation. That shut down overloaded my substation that powered our house which caused our outage - along with 23,000 others. Well the utility rerouted the power so we have electricity again. At least this time it was during the day and we did not need the lamps or flashlights!

Fish are still fine of course. They are troopers to say the least.
I still dont know why all my fish survived. I had to get new frozen prepared foods and decided to try Fomula1 (have used Formula2) and mysis (have used brine) - they loved them - especially the sand sifter star - usually he will eventually move towards his food (even after the power came back on) but once i put it in the sand, he started to move over it and gobble it up. Good stuff apparently.

On another note - the FireFish - when we moved to our current location 1 year ago, I tried to transport the fish separately from the tank for safety - but he buried himself in the sand and could not find him with all the rock. So i just moved the tank with him in the sand as is - with 3" of water of course. He was out and about a day later looking at his new surroundings. Stubborn little bugger he is!

 

[kcress]

The reason they thrived was that, clearly, your tank is not heavily stocked. You have enough surface area to get the gases in and out as needed, and your temperature has obviously not swung too wildly.

You decision to NOT feed was an excellent one. Feeding would cause the biggest biological load demand.

Your tank must be very low stress giving your tank critters lots of stress room.

Many tanks I see would've crashed in hours.