I am only now back online and officially finished with Hurricane Frances.
I rode it out with a generator and thankfully- all my tanks
survived beautifully. I was only without power for 72 hours, but feel
confident I could have gone much longer with no losses. Loss of sanity- yes,
but the tanks did fine.
In anticipation of the storm I did major water changes in all the tanks, and I think that helped a great deal- the storm itself took so long to pass over that we couldn't even go out to get the generator fired up the first day. They went totally without anything but the tiny battery pumps for over 12 hours.
Once we got the generator going (had a lot to learn- it was the very first time we used one) things began looking up.
With the reef tank heat was the major concern, so in addition to the regular
pumps and powerheads I added a couple of spare HOT filters and pointed the
returns slightly up into the air. That and an extra fan in the room did the
trick- despite heat and terrible humidity indoors the tank temperature never
got over 84ºF. I did not run all the lights at once- in fact had them on
very little. The CO2 build up in the heavily shuttered house also caused me
some concern- I am just now geting my pH back up past 8.0. I had battery
pumps for each tank I have, but the prolonged time between the power going
off and our being able to go outside and fire up the generator was the
problem there.
But in contrast I had difficulty keeping the temps *up* in my Discus tank
which usually sits at about 86ºF. This tank is in a different room and had
only a Penguin 300 on it which cooled the water too much. It usually runs on
an Eheim 2028 that gets less air mixed in, but it had been without power for
so long I was afraid it had gone toxic.
I don't think the Goldfish even knew there was a problem aside from the fact that they did without food for the three days we were powerless.
Pigpen cried.
Today is the first day that the yard clean up is done, the house is clean again, the mother in law went home, I replaced the window I broke taking my shutters down, and finally got real groceries in the house again.
Life is back to normal, Ivan has veered away from me, and life is looking good.
We really squeaked by on this one, and are very thankful that we had a house to clean. My very best wishes for those in Ivans path- it will be a difficult time for you.
For example- they found a carload of guys cruising our neighborhood after curfew and writing down the addresses of homes that were running generators, presumably to steal them next week. The day after Frances hit a woman driving her car in my town was blindsided and killed by some jerk who had to speed through an intersection where the lights were out. Folks fall off ladders, chain saw their arms off- I remember how after Irene hit three children were fatally electrocuted because they were allowed to play in standing water. The caravan of trucks containing power company reinforcements had a difficult time getting to the areas of need because careless drivers wrecked their cars all over the state and blocked the roads.
It is a dangerous time before, during, and afterwards.
The best hope for you and your family is to get fully prepared early, then stay home afterwards. Cruising the neighborhood just to see what happened is a bad idea.
Storms this catastrophic bring out the very best and the very worst in people- it is amazing and appalling all at the same time.
Best of luck to all who are in for it...
I rode it out with a generator and thankfully- all my tanks
survived beautifully. I was only without power for 72 hours, but feel
confident I could have gone much longer with no losses. Loss of sanity- yes,
but the tanks did fine.
In anticipation of the storm I did major water changes in all the tanks, and I think that helped a great deal- the storm itself took so long to pass over that we couldn't even go out to get the generator fired up the first day. They went totally without anything but the tiny battery pumps for over 12 hours.
Once we got the generator going (had a lot to learn- it was the very first time we used one) things began looking up.
With the reef tank heat was the major concern, so in addition to the regular
pumps and powerheads I added a couple of spare HOT filters and pointed the
returns slightly up into the air. That and an extra fan in the room did the
trick- despite heat and terrible humidity indoors the tank temperature never
got over 84ºF. I did not run all the lights at once- in fact had them on
very little. The CO2 build up in the heavily shuttered house also caused me
some concern- I am just now geting my pH back up past 8.0. I had battery
pumps for each tank I have, but the prolonged time between the power going
off and our being able to go outside and fire up the generator was the
problem there.
But in contrast I had difficulty keeping the temps *up* in my Discus tank
which usually sits at about 86ºF. This tank is in a different room and had
only a Penguin 300 on it which cooled the water too much. It usually runs on
an Eheim 2028 that gets less air mixed in, but it had been without power for
so long I was afraid it had gone toxic.
I don't think the Goldfish even knew there was a problem aside from the fact that they did without food for the three days we were powerless.
Pigpen cried.
Today is the first day that the yard clean up is done, the house is clean again, the mother in law went home, I replaced the window I broke taking my shutters down, and finally got real groceries in the house again.
Life is back to normal, Ivan has veered away from me, and life is looking good.
We really squeaked by on this one, and are very thankful that we had a house to clean. My very best wishes for those in Ivans path- it will be a difficult time for you.
For example- they found a carload of guys cruising our neighborhood after curfew and writing down the addresses of homes that were running generators, presumably to steal them next week. The day after Frances hit a woman driving her car in my town was blindsided and killed by some jerk who had to speed through an intersection where the lights were out. Folks fall off ladders, chain saw their arms off- I remember how after Irene hit three children were fatally electrocuted because they were allowed to play in standing water. The caravan of trucks containing power company reinforcements had a difficult time getting to the areas of need because careless drivers wrecked their cars all over the state and blocked the roads.
It is a dangerous time before, during, and afterwards.
The best hope for you and your family is to get fully prepared early, then stay home afterwards. Cruising the neighborhood just to see what happened is a bad idea.
Storms this catastrophic bring out the very best and the very worst in people- it is amazing and appalling all at the same time.
Best of luck to all who are in for it...
