Hurricane Ida

[Phillip]

We lost power for 10 days after hurricane ida came through. I had some battery operated air bubblers so o was able to keep the fish alive. My filter and lights were off the entire time though. I’m getting algae everywhere now. I would’ve thought no light would’ve helped prevent algae?? 
 

The tank is moderately stocked and planted. I always keep nitrates under 40. I’ve stopped adding fertilizer since the algae started. Any advice?

Thanks!

[Colu]

Looks like black brush algae you can spot treat it with liquid carbon such seachem flourish excel  just be careful not to over dose as it can affect you fish

[Phillip]

On 9/24/2021 at 7:38 PM, Colu said:

Looks like black brush algae you can spot treat it with liquid carbon such seachem flourish excel  just be careful not to over dose as it can affect you fish

What does carbon do to fish?

[Colu]

If you over dose liquid carbon it can kill your fish if you use recommended dose on the bottle you won't have any problems I have used it a couple of times and not had any problems with my fish when using the recommended dose

[Jimfish98]

If everything was off except air, you likely had a build up of nutrients from the filter not going. Carbon dose, reduce light, let the filter come back and do its job. Water change to remove any build up. 

Something to consider if you are a tool person, a Ryobi inverter. They have one for their 40V that you can plug into and it will run some stuff for you even if in short bursts during outages. If you have a lot of tanks or want to think long term, they have a generator that runs on 4 of the 40V that can run a fridge and other stuff inside the home and quietly. You can use one to likely run all the tanks you have at once.

[Phillip]

On 9/24/2021 at 10:14 PM, Jimfish98 said:

If everything was off except air, you likely had a build up of nutrients from the filter not going. Carbon dose, reduce light, let the filter come back and do its job. Water change to remove any build up. 

Something to consider if you are a tool person, a Ryobi inverter. They have one for their 40V that you can plug into and it will run some stuff for you even if in short bursts during outages. If you have a lot of tanks or want to think long term, they have a generator that runs on 4 of the 40V that can run a fridge and other stuff inside the home and quietly. You can use one to likely run all the tanks you have at once.

Thanks. We live in south Louisiana, so we’re always dealing with bad weather it seems. I had a generator that decided to crap out on me at the beginning of the storm. I’m looking in to a whole home generator which should help prevent this in the future. 

[Jimfish98]

On 9/25/2021 at 12:01 AM, Phillip said:

Thanks. We live in south Louisiana, so we’re always dealing with bad weather it seems. I had a generator that decided to crap out on me at the beginning of the storm. I’m looking in to a whole home generator which should help prevent this in the future. 

FL here, know your pain. I had a generator running after Irma on the pool deck. One cord to the fridge out there. One through a window to my office for my fish tank, and then one out to the pond for the air on it, one to charge all the ryobi batteries for night time. Would stop everything to run just the koi pond for a few hours, then back to just air and running everything else. We wanted whole house but we don't have natural gas running through here unfortunately. 

[Phantom240]

I had my power out for 8 days after Ida, and lost my pea puffer tank and some of my plants melted (temps too high for the puffers). I didn't get the algae outbreak like you have, thankfully. What are your water parameters now? Might be wise to do a few water changes in the realm of 25-50% over the next week to help bring nutrients back into balance. It looks much more like staghorn algae to me than brush or black beard algae. What's your water source?

[Phillip]

On 9/25/2021 at 4:37 PM, Phantom240 said:

I had my power out for 8 days after Ida, and lost my pea puffer tank and some of my plants melted (temps too high for the puffers). I didn't get the algae outbreak like you have, thankfully. What are your water parameters now? Might be wise to do a few water changes in the realm of 25-50% over the next week to help bring nutrients back into balance. It looks much more like staghorn algae to me than brush or black beard algae. What's your water source?

Thanks. Sorry about the pea puffer tank. I was getting worried about high temps also.
 

I’ve done a couple extra 25% water changes. water source is city water
 

Is there anything else I should be sampling?

ph - 7.2

ammonia - 0

nitrite - 0 

nitrate - 20/40

TDS - 250

Gh - 215

kh - 125

 

 

[Phantom240]

Unless you have an iron and a phosphate test, that's usually fine. I would aim to get my nitrates down to 10ppm for the time being, and monitor how it goes over the next week or two. Easy Carbon knocks it out pretty easy too. 

[Phillip]

On 9/25/2021 at 10:04 PM, Phantom240 said:

Unless you have an iron and a phosphate test, that's usually fine. I would aim to get my nitrates down to 10ppm for the time being, and monitor how it goes over the next week or two. Easy Carbon knocks it out pretty easy too. 

Thanks. I do t have either of those tests. I might see if I can pick them up test kit for them. I’ve started dosing Easy carbon every other day. Is that what you do??

[Phantom240]

I've done spot treatments with Excel when I had staghorn and BBA issues. However, I haven't had any algae issues in quite some time, because of the sheer mass of plants in my tank sucking up all the nutrients with my CO2 injection.