ElleDee
Member
I live in an area where hurricanes and ice storms can possibly disrupt power for a few days and I'm working out my contingency plans for my aquariums. I have read the worry that if you lose power for too long and leave your canister sealed it can go hypoxic and dump toxic water into your tank when the power is restored. I understand the nature of the concern, but has anyone actually experienced this? If you have had an extended power outage and left the filter alone without any issues, how long did it sit for?
If I know power is going to be out for more than 24 hours I'll probably just open it up and move the media either into the tank where I have battery air pumps or an open bucket, but is that threshold too long? Some people think turning off their filter for more than an hour is risky, but that seems very conservative to me. Last night I was away and I woke up to some text messages from my power company indicating we had a 2.5 hour outage in the wee hours of the morning due to damage from a car accident and there doesn't seem to be any ill effects from that.
If I know power is going to be out for more than 24 hours I'll probably just open it up and move the media either into the tank where I have battery air pumps or an open bucket, but is that threshold too long? Some people think turning off their filter for more than an hour is risky, but that seems very conservative to me. Last night I was away and I woke up to some text messages from my power company indicating we had a 2.5 hour outage in the wee hours of the morning due to damage from a car accident and there doesn't seem to be any ill effects from that.