Hi New Member - I Had A Long Day With My Fish Today!

[keenonfish]

Hi, I have been lurking here for a little while now and a few things have happened over the last week to motivate my introducing myself, so first off, Hi to everyone here!
Ok I have had a very long day today because to my horror we had a power cut at about 12:30 a.m. this morning! Luckily, I was watching telly while this happened so my first instinct was to come downstairs and find out what had happened.. Rang supplier basically local sub-station had fire didn't know how long repair would be so at this point I took it upon myself to prepare for a long shift!
Now I only have a small 5 gallon hex tank, and have, after a long while managed to get the thing cycled and stable, although after reading up I realise not the perfect numbers of inhabitants but this is despite being advised by a very large well known LFS down the road from me.... More about this for another thread as I have a serious problem with this 'reputable newly reopened warehouse'
So basically I have two red wag platies, two Neons and a peppered cory. Like I have said everything has been stable for a while now so I was not going to let this power cut upset my tank!
Basically, my main concern was temperature and air for my fish & bacteria. Temperature I took care of by boiling lots of pans of water and filling hot water bottles up to about 40 degrees and maintaining an average of about 22 degrees tank water (normal temp is 74 / 23) so despite being a lot of work and despite temp dipping slightly below green line for a couple hours this wasn't a major issue (I hope). As for air, well there was only one option - a foot pump I purchased from Halfords the other week
Sooo, basically, I was pumping air and boiling water from 12:30 a.m. and then finally at 11:30 a.m. power was restored and I could breath a sigh of relief once more well, until I had to take the littl'n to the park after that so no time for rest either! Ironically, after a knackering day I cannot sleep now, so I find myself here and sharing my adventure!
I have since performed a gravel clean and about a third of the water, as I only aerated the tank for about 10 minutes every hour but so far everything seems ok.... Need to get my own test kit but will take water to a local LFS tomorrow to double check... It's been a hard few hours and although my fish aren't very fancy or worth a lot I think it was worth the effort. I guess a water test will reveal more tomorrow.
I am interested to know some power cut tips and any advice (critical or otherwise) should this happen again I will also want to discuss my tank but will start a new topic for that I think


So that's it for now!

Olly.

 

[Mr Bliss]

Welcome to the forums!

Sounds like a hard day. The fish were lucky this happened when you were around to take care of them! I think circulating the water regularly with whatever is handy is important. When this happened to me, lacking a pump of any kind, I just sloshed around in the tank every half an hour or so with my hands throughout the day to keep the water circulated and it seemed to be enough although it terrified the fish.

The thing I'd be most worried about during a power cut is the filter going anaerobic, as this can kill many of your beneficial filter bacteria and decrease your water quality when you turn the filter back on. Some people go as far as to take out all their filter media during power cuts, and spread it on shallow trays or plates filled with water so that the media is only barely covered by water, to ensure that it stays oxygenated. I'd do daily 25% water changes for a week or so in case the bacterial population has been damaged, even if the test kit doesn't show an immediate change.

 

[keenonfish]

Thanks Mr. Bliss, yes I was worried about the medium which is why I plugged the foot pump into the UGF up thing (sorry forgot the name now).
Anyway fish seem fine so far but will change 10% of water each day like you suggested!

 

[Mr Bliss]

Oh I didn't realize you used the pump to circulate the UGF. That was an awesome idea, I don't think it'd have occurred to me in the same situation. Kudos for that.

 

[gladfrog]

WHO said fish are relaxing lol
i spent all day cursing a nutty guppy, but not as worring as yourday iam sure your friends will be ok