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how to prepare for power cut?

UCBONES

Seedling
Joined
16 May 2008
Messages
14
Location
Cotgrave, Nottingham.
I've had a leaflet through the door advising that the power will be going off from around 09:00 through till 15:30 tomorrow while they do some repairs.

What should I do in preparation for this to minimise problems?

Should I turn things off before I leave for work (external filter, lights, co2 on solenoid, heater and flow pump) or just let them stop when the power goes off 3/4 hour later (- in this instance what happens with the filter taps being still open?)
I presume that this length of time without water flow through the filter will effect the bacterial colony?

Also what should I be doing when the power comes back on?

As it happens I'm finishing at 15:00 tomorrow anyway so I should be in just after the power comes back on (assuming that (optimistically) they work to schedule).

Any and all advice gratefully received!
 
I would pull the plug out tonight, then wait a minute, observe, and plug it in again to see what happens!
If everything comes back to life OK then I would just walk out the door as normal on the day of the outage.
(I know for my tank this is OK - it is only if the water level drops below a certain threshold that that my filter needs repriming).

Are your timers mechanical or electronic?
If they are mechanical then things will 'freeze in time' during the powercut so need to be reset after.
If electronic they will have a backup battery so should keep the time OK.

Once I had a powercut and one of my fish died. I took this as a sign that my internal power filter was struggling, so upgraded to an external. I am confident that if I had a powercut now the same would not happen.
 
Provided it is under the 6hrs that they say it will be it should be ok. As Matt says, you might need to reset timers when the power comes back.

The only worry I might have is surges when they reconnect, it might be worth putting a surge protector on any valuable equipment if you haven't already.
 
our power was off in January fro 8.50am till 5.25pm, no ill effects, the only thing I did was reduce feeding for a few days before( i know you are on short notice though... how thoughtful of them :twisted: ) and put blankets around the tanks to keep heat in, 11 tanks, no problems.

JOHNNY
 
So be honest there probably isn't much you can/need to do. CO2 diffusion would be my first thought, although depending on your diffusion method, the level in the tank will probably go down but the plants wont need it anyway as the lights will be off.

The filter is a bigger issue, but then again I doubt there is much you can do. I certainly wont turn it off yourself, let the electricity company do that. That way its off for the shortest level of time.

I'll add that in my experience these things dont take as long as they suggest. They probably gave a time range so that people are ready for the worst, when in fact it tends to be shorter.

Sam
 
If it helps rest your mind a little, we had an unexpected power failure last year in the house and it was off for about 36 hours. :wideyed:

So we had no filters, no lights, no CO2, and no heating - the tank temp dropped to 19C.

We lost a few plants and had alot of muck / algae in the tank, but all the fish (including 14 discus) were fine ! :D
 
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