# What can you do to prepare for a power outage?



## CatG (Apr 10, 2010)

Hello,
This will be my first winter with my tank (75 gal, tropical fish), and I am a little nervouse about the possibility of a power outage due to ice storms or what have you. We do not have a generator, so that is not a viable option. We DO have a natural gas heater in the room that the tank is in, so that will help a bit with trying to keep the tank semi warm (probably mid 60s, maybe less) if the power does go out. However, the tank is in the basement and it can get pretty cold without the main furnace running, even with that gas heater. I suppose we could always throw blankets on the tank to help insulate it.

What kind of emergency equipment and supplies should I be stocking up on in case our power goes out for extended periods? Is there any such thing as a battery powered power head or pump so I can get some water movement? Any sort of battery powered heater that I could use to supplement the gas heater? Any other things I should be getting?

Thanks in advance,
Cat


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## Lizzz (Nov 28, 2010)

I dont know about a powerhead thats battery powered, im sure they make them, Ive just never seen one. my LFS sells several of these battery powered air pumps Which ive used during power outages, and everyone survived. To keep everyone warm I bought a bunch of those "hand warmers" they say you can use them underwater...but i just taped them around my tank. They also make battery powered heating pads/blankets that you could put around your tank as well. Check the camping section for them, and make sure to stock up on batteries, Id imagine they wont last long...

edit: you got me worrying about power outages now for the winter. I searched a little around google and found this site that I found very useful, and hopefully you will too.


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## CatG (Apr 10, 2010)

Thanks so much for the information! I will start looking in to this stuff right away, and hope we don't have an ice storm any time soon. I wish I had thought of this earlier, as I am definitely not prepared for it - and winter is certainly here.

Thanks again,
Cat


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## Kerrigan (Jun 13, 2010)

If a generator is completely out, is there another area of the house which will be kept warmer? If so, the best thing if you have the space is to move the tank there. Especially with a tank that size it holds heat for quite some time—as long as the temps are not drastically low it can take quite a few hours for there to be much of a dip in the temp—hopefully by then your power will be restored! You can also wrap the tank in anything which may have insulating properties to it. It may be a good idea to keep some foam, insulation, etc, around the house for just that purpose. Wrap it around the outside and tie it up with rope. Heat rises, so it will be good to have some sort of insulation on top as well. You will want to be especially careful with oxygenation if you cover the top real good. I have just used a gallon jug, filled it with water, stirred and shook it up, and dumped it back in from a height. Repeat a few times and it seems to work just dandy. Hopefully you don’t have a terribly large bio-load, if not it won’t be difficult to keep an aquarium that size oxygenated. 

If moving the tank permanently isn’t a viable option, consider keeping a few large Tupperware tubs around or even a kiddie pool if you have the space—good surface area, just make sure it is clean! Even if the temps get down around 70 in the rest of the house most tropical fish, while being cooler than optimum, should still be ok—better than 60’s! I have had to do this for a few days, and everybody lived. It can be a pain to get the fish out in the first place with little light. Just lay a bucket with some plants inside in one end of the tank for a few minutes, rustle plants at the other end, they flee to the bucket, then pick it up. Fill the tubs with water from the tank, and it’s a good idea put things for them to hide behind inside the tubs to reduce stress levels. If you don’t have a battery-operated air pump, agitate the water as frequently as possible with a bucket to make sure there is plenty of oxygen in the water. I have no personal experience with the battery-operated air pumps myself, seems like a waste of batteries. Of course it may be worth it if you’re away from the tank for extended periods of time, but if your power is out, chances are something is going on which makes it a good idea to stay home! 

If you put your fish in tubs, also be careful with feedings. Fish are cold-blooded and don’t have very high energy needs, so they can survive with no food for weeks. Personally, my concern is always stress levels in these kinds of conditions, so I give them just a little bit every day. Keep in mind though-more food, more feces--and there is no filtration! The tubs can be better though, because there is nothing to rot and contribute to waste build-up and ammonia spikes in the tub, as there is in your tank's gravel. Personally I experienced no spikes in ammonia or nitrites in the tubs, but I was also keeping plants in the tubs with the fish—they probably brought with them extra bacteria from the tank to help convert waste. A turkey baster is handy for a little cleaning of the bottom of the tub as well. If you set the tub up on a table or counter airline tubing can be used as a syphon as well, it will let out little water, which is good since you won't have much water to replace it with unless you set some aside.

A big thing to consider with any power outage is your filtration system--I don’t know any specific calculations, but it seems the general consensus I hear is the bacteria can start dying off in just a few hours. When I transferred my fish to a tub, in another tub I put the sponges from my canister filter, unwashed. I’m not sure why the article Lizzz mentioned says to wash the sponges. Personally, I wouldn’t want to risk losing any bacteria, and the gunk shouldn’t hurt the bacteria, and should even help provide a food source. Since I wasn’t sure which was better--total submersion for water or above water for oxygen--I left half of the sponges out of the water and covered the whole thing with a lid to keep in the moisture. I also made sure to occasionally open the lid to let fresh air in, splashed some water on the exposed sponges, and agitated the water just like with the fish tub to hopefully help with oxygen levels. Since these outages were for a few days, I also used a turkey baster to siphon gunk off the bottom of the fish tub and I just dumped it into the filter sponge tub--I figured the extra food source may be beneficial to the bacteria.

When the power was back, I got the filter and everything up and running again, and since the filters were not washed they did make a little mess when the filter started back up. The tank was a little gunky anyway, so I did a good cleaning and water change. I also made sure to test the ammonia and nitrite levels, and got the tank up to the same temp as the water the fish were already in. Once they were in the tank I brought the temp up over the span of a day or two.

Depending on what length of power outages your area can expect, I would suggest a generator if at all possible. If you expect the occasional lengthy outage, a medium-sized used generator can be purchased for a few hundred dollars, brand-new for less than a thousand. We got one for our house for about $600 a few years ago-talk about coming in handy when we had a 13 day power outage after a hurricane, or a 6 day outage due to snow! We end up bringing it out several times every year, it's well worth the money. It’s so nice not having to run down to the creek for water just to flush the stinking toilet, cook on the wood stove, worry about animals getting to the food left outside in the winter, go on nothing but canned and dry goods in the summer, or do all the stuff above! I just hook the filter and heater up for a few hours and go about my day. Of course, if you’re snowed in fiddling with the tank may give you something to do! I live out in the "boonies" and our power goes out all the time, so our house is set-up specifically to deal with it. We have wood heat as well as electric--when the power goes out I have the tank strategically placed so that it doesn't get too hot or too cold since we run solely on wood at those times. It is difficult to keep an even temp with wood, so I would never be able to have a small tank, big tanks around 60 gals and more keep their own temp pretty well--fluctuations do not affect them nearly as much which is definitely a positive in your situation.


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## daverock1337 (Mar 14, 2010)

i lost my prize flowerhorn, some plants, and a nice albino BN pleco last year when we lost power for a week. my solution in case it ever happens again is a deep cycle battery, a power inverter for a car, and a cigarette lighter outlet wired to the battery. i keep the battery charged on a trickle charger when not in use. the deep cycle battery can run lower and longer than a standard car battery without ruining it. this was all my dad's idea. 

i miss hand feeding that flowerhorn. he was about 5 inches, huge nuchal bump, yellow face, pink belly, pearling all over his scales, and with two rows of spots down his side. got him from a lfs for 5 bucks when he was about an inch long. he loved being in a planted tank and never once uprooted any of the plants. he also ate 12 tiger barbs, 4 blue gourami, 8 kuhli loaches, an albino tiger oscar, and a black orchid betta. also killed a six inch jack dempsey. he was a champ haha.


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## 21windowsamba (Nov 8, 2006)

you could also invest in the unit called APC backups. My uncle looked into it as he lost some saltwater fish when power was out. Here is the link
www.apc.com


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