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Preparing for a scheduled power cut

squid102

squid102

Member
Joined
4 Aug 2010
Messages
209
Location
Surrey
We've just received a letter informing us of a planned 8 hour power cut in two weeks time. Is there anything I can do to prepare for this to protect the fish and filter bacteria?

I have 4 tanks. None have co2 or are particularly heavily stocked.

Tank 1: 100l heavily planted community tank. External filter. I was about to give it a heavy prune but perhaps hold off for bit?

Tank 2: 60l dwarf puffer tank. Medium level of plants. Internal filter.

Tank 3: 15l red cherry shrimp tank. Minimal plants as I'm just setting up a new tank for them. Rubbish internal filter and a second sponge filter powered by an air pump.

Tank 4: 55l tank newly set up a week ago. Aquanano 40 with a built in sump style filter.
 
I had the same issue a few years back what I did was buy some air driven sponge filters and battery operated a air pumps off ebay. They wont be fully cycled in 2 weeks but they may help if not what about renting a generator for the day and run your tanks off that ?

Mark
 
we used to get power cuts for 48 hours and all i used was a battery air pump and a tractor
inner tube full of air most of the external filter didnt suffer any problems after it was the tanks
with UG filters that i had spikes with heat can be added to the tank by putting warm water in bottles
and floating them in your tanks
 
I personally wouldn't worry about 8 hrs as far as the fish and air is concerned. Not sure on your life of your bacteria. A couple of inverters and car batteries/leasure battery would be a good option that's my back up plan , I have a cheapo aldi inverter and a leasure battery just to keep filter going.;) if you know a trucker caravaner or boater they may have one to lend you.:)
 
Mine went off for over two days when I was on holiday. I was lucky it happened at the end of my holiday not the beginning but I was surprised to fine only one fish dead out of over 60 fish and the temperature was down at 16 degrees! I am sure 8 hours will be fine.
 
If you are going to be at home, then simply clean the filters giving the bacteria some fresh air, reduce muck in filters, squeeze sponges, all while keeping them wet. I wont be worried too much about the fish and plants. But you can manually change water at slow pace to keep good O2 levels and reduce poop in the tanks.

Fish and plants are sturdy enough... they are used to traveling in sealed bags.

Cheers

Sent from my GT-N7000 using Tapatalk 2
 
Thanks for all the suggestions.

I'm thinking that I might put the filter media from all the tanks in a bucket with tank water and get a battery powered air pump to oxygenate it. I had some holiday to use up so had already booked the day off before I even knew about the power cut. So I will be able to manually oxygenate the tanks every now and then by scooping out some water and pouring it back from a bit higher. I'm sure the fish would be fine without it but i'll do it anyway.
 
Last Xmas had repeated power cuts leading to the house breaker tripping and fish went without power for nearly two days. Tank was down to 16'C but when power was returned all ok.
 
Ive heard its filters that suffer most from power cuts and that you can remove water from tank via filter, then pour it back in tank every hour or so, to keep filter alive and water airated. you could warm it in a pan before you put it back too if your worried about temperature. I nearly killed 4 silver dollers with a cold water change when i first started keeping fish, and im sure theyll be others that are sensitive too
 
I had a planned 8hr power cut recently and had no problems at all however I would recommend testing your water daily for a few days afterwards just to make sure you don't get any spikes due to a small amount of bacteria die off.
It is highly likely that the power may not be off 8hrs as the companies try to work as quickly as possible to restore power :)
 
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