Urgent: 4 Day Power Outage. Need Advice ASAP!

[Zathul]

Hello all! Last night, we just got bit by a major storm that knocked out power. Electricity has been out since 6:20 PM last night. Just now, at 2:30 PM, I received the word that our power will not be on until May 16th at 10 PM. By then, it will be approaching 4 days without power (and that's just an estimate).

To make this infinitely worse, a vacation we have been planning for over a year is happening TONIGHT, and I will not be in state for the next 20 days. I will have someone checking up on them every couple of days, but that doesn't help much as they don't know much about fish keeping and I'm running out of time for emergency measures (and will be completely unable to perform any after midnight).

The tank is a 36 galled bowed. It has one angelfish about half grown, an adult honey gourami, and four adult cherry barbs currently (I was in the middle of slowly stocking it).

I have a HOB filter, a sponge filter connected to a battery backup (which has now failed given it's been 17 hours), and is moderately planted. The gourami has been at the surface swimming upwards to keep its head out of water since last night even with the sponge filter going until it failed. The other fish are acting totally fine, but I'm worried for my angel since the temp has dipped to around 75-76 degrees with no heater.

I'm insanely stressed out this happened the day before the longest vacation I've ever taken, and I don't want to let the tank die out. I've worked too hard on it to get it where it is.

Any advice to help them survive would be greatly appreciated. I'm desperate for anything.

[NOLANANO]

I don't have much advice but one time in 2021 a hurricane knocked out my power for 2 weeks and I didn't lose any fish. I did plug an airstone into a portable battery but that only gave aeration for a day or so. My plants took it worse that the fish. Most of the plants survived too btw.  Not saying you will have the same luck but trying to point out that 4 days is doable and all hope is not lost.

Good Luck!

Edited May 14 by NOLANANO

[Tony s]

2 options i can think of. 

1. get a small portable generator, not cheap. possibly not fast to install. possibly not available.

2. ask your helper if you can bring the tank to them if they have power. cheap. a bit of work

okay 3. as @NOLANANO says, cross your fingers and pray. well, okay, that's not a direct quote. 🤣

some of that will depend on the type and size of the fish. and activity levels. 

seems to me to be a reason to have that coop battery pump. now i'm gonna need to get one of those. we get outages all the time

[Zathul]

On 5/14/2024 at 3:02 PM, NOLANANO said:

I don't have much advice but one time in 2021 a hurricane knocked out my power for 2 weeks and I didn't lose any fish. I did plug an airstone into a portable battery but that only gave aeration for a day or so. My plants took it worse that the fish. Most of the plants survived too btw.  Not saying you will have the same luck but trying to point out that 4 days is doable and all hope is not lost.

Good Luck!

Thank you, that's at least reassuring. The fish seem to be okay for the moment, but I'm worried about the plants causing an ammonia spike with no supervision. They were already due for root tabs/ferts, which I was only able to do right as the power went out. I think I'll just blow the money on a small portable generator for peace of mind, and then pray everything works out with that person to supervise. I appreciate it!

[Zathul]

On 5/14/2024 at 3:03 PM, Tony s said:

2 options i can think of. 

1. get a small portable generator, not cheap. possibly not fast to install. possibly not available.

2. ask your helper if you can bring the tank to them if they have power. cheap. a bit of work

okay 3. as @NOLANANO says, cross your fingers and pray. well, okay, that's not a direct quote. 🤣

some of that will depend on the type and size of the fish. and activity levels. 

seems to me to be a reason to have that coop battery pump. now i'm gonna need to get one of those. we get outages all the time

I think at this point I'm looking at options 1 and 3. The aquarium co-op large sponge filter/battery back-up pump worked fantastic right up until a few hours ago. It actually lasted close to 16 hours without being in power saver mode. I think at this point to not worry myself sick over it, I'm going to quickly find a large portable battery/portable generator to keep the sponge filter and heater powered for a day or two. If I can manage that, that should give them a much better chance I hope. I see one at Lowe's currently that can push 400W continuous. Has several battery options, some of which people were using to keep space heaters/laptops charged for upwards of 10 hours. Hoping that can keep the air pump + heater powered for longer in that case.

Thank you a ton for the idea!

[Cory]

If I were in this exact situation. I'd consider a big battery back up - Careful, a 100 watt heater can chew through a $1,000 battery in a day.

However what I would actually do. If I have a local fish store that sells our battery back up air pump. I'd go buy another. I'd charge the air pump in the car on the way to the store. With 2 air pumps. You can teach your neighbor to switch them out each day. Ask them to charge 1 or 2 in their car, or a friends house.

You have few fish. If you look at it like you have say 4 fish in 36 gallons of water and they were in shipping across the country. They'd most likely be ok for 4 days. I'd simply not feed them. I'd get them some air if it was easy. If you have a way to keep it warmer while you're there, use it.

Overall, I'd unplug the light and the hang on back filter. Keep the air pump plugged in. When power is restored, the sponge filter will process stuff. I'd probably have the neighbor feed 1 week after  power returns. Then again 1 week after that. With only 2 light feedings. It'll be hard to get too far off track until you're back.

 

[Lennie]

There are air pumps that work with battery. Sounds like the best choice here to me

 

I don't think 23-24C is a problem for 4 days at all

Edited May 14 by Lennie

[Pepere]

A 3 watt air pump consumes roughly 75 watt hours a day.  A grp 29 deep cycle battery battery at Walmart sells for $120.00 and should give you roughly 600-800 watt hours on a charge.  It wont be fully charged t the store so you would need to take it somewhere to charge it.  You can get a 400 watt inverter at Walmart for around 40.00.

 

a generTor is problematic as they typically need refueling every 8-9 hours and is way overkill for an air pump.

 

assuming it is not too cool where you live I would forgo the heater.  I have had fish in transit for 4 days with measured water temp at 60 when it showed up and 100% survivial.

 

Back in the early 70s when I had my first tank as a kid, the instruction book on keeping fish actually talked about running a tank with or without a filter. The book essentially said you could stock the tank more with a filter…….  Back then We ran box filters…

 

iirc the safe stocking level without a filter was about 30% pf what you could stock with a filter…

 

given a 36 gallon tank very lightly stocked, the idea of no filtration and no feeding till power comes back on doesnt sound to terrible to me.

Edited May 14 by Pepere

[Tony s]

On 5/14/2024 at 4:55 PM, Pepere said:

a generTor is problematic as they typically need refueling every 8-9 hours and is way overkill for an air pump.

That is true, but i'd also hook up the refrigerator/freezer. 4 days is a long time for food as well

[lefty o]

best i can say is i would unplug and dump out the HOB, and worry about it when i got back. you are very lightly stocked, and it can go many days if it has to with no air or filtration. when the power comes back on, have the neighbor feed lightly once or twice a week.

[Pepere]

On 5/14/2024 at 5:33 PM, Tony s said:

That is true, but i'd also hook up the refrigerator/freezer. 4 days is a long time for food as well

Given that OP is heading out for a 20 vacation, fridge and freezer might already have been culled out.

[Tony s]

On 5/14/2024 at 6:24 PM, Pepere said:

fridge and freezer might already have been culled out.

hopefully true. I just have generator on the brain. I've been wanting one for 15 yrs now. have them on all our livestock facilities. but not on the house. nothing scarier than being in a -10 degree blizzard with no power. but 15k is not something i can justify spending. no tax deduction on personal expenses

[Pepere]

On 5/14/2024 at 6:36 PM, Tony s said:

I just have generator on the brain. I've been wanting one for 15 yrs now.

I just bought a 800 watt runninggwattage, 1000 watt startupwattage inverter based generator that was on sale from a well known brick and mortar store retailer for 169.00.  That could keep ones fridge cold, and ones aquarium warm and fire up the boiler from time to time.  Granted you can not run everything at the same time, but 169.00 was too cheap to pass up.

 

I have 2, 1800 watt Ryobi inverter generators as primary use…But those cost around $800.00.

[Tony s]

On 5/14/2024 at 6:48 PM, Pepere said:

 Granted you can not run everything at the same time

Yeah, but i want to...  Been looking at generators from our regular supplier. 150a, instant start, lp tank connected for fuel. auto disconnect from power lines. (yeah, i don't want much 🤣) basically small version of our other units. the quote was 15k. I may settle for less though. our power supplies can get brittle in the cold. overhead lines on wooden posts