Advice needed from experience with no power and freezing temps

I guarantee everyone is having a better holidays than me. Ice storm hit our city, had no power for 5 days. Live in a apartment building so a generator was out of the question. I had vortech battery backups so flow was not an issue. However because of no power I had no heat, electricity, or hot water. Had to leave my place cuz inside temps dropped to 45 degrees Fahrenheit.

Came back today after found out power was back on.
Tank was at 51 degrees Fahrenheit and ph was 2.8
Everything was dead.(except for the aiptasia, and algae which somehow survived)

I threw on new carbon and making water for water changes, I have dosed prime to help with ammonia.

Basically any idea where I go from here? Is my tank going to re cycle? or can i just clean the heck out of the water and keep going?

Any advice is appreciated,
thank you in advance,
Nick

 

I feel for you but it will need to cycle again and probably starting over would be my choice of action. This is scary seeing as how I can't afford a generator right now and only have electric heat as well. There is no "Smilies" that can express how bad I know this is.

 

So sorry to hear, certainly puts a damper on the holiday.

Sounds to me it might be a good time to get the aiptasia out and do any other changes you may need to do. Carbon and prime type liquids are a good starting point along with removing any dead stuff.

 

That sucks! I have heard of people taping heat packs(like the glove and boot warmers) to the outside glass, also the thick styro insulation and wrapping in blankets or a combo of them. Also getting hot water jugs from an outside source and floating them to keep temp up. Sorry to hear about your losses.

 

I actually was doing all of that, had the tank wrapped in blankets. I even used those glove warmers by putting them in ziplock bags and floating them, I also was getting hot water from a nearby source....The problem was "I" could only last so long in the apartment before I had to leave. The outside temp dropped to 5 Fahrenheit(-15 Celsius) and the place got too cold to compete with what I had been doing. After staying here for 3 days doing that I couldn't stay any longer because I was too damn cold. Plus it was X-mas. I guess I'm lucky though, just listening to the news there's still 80,000 people in my city with no electricity and they're telling us it will be fully restored by Sunday.

and I have been meaning to do a ton of changes to the tank so I guess its as good a time as any. Except no corals for a while because probably gonna move within 6 months so less of a hassle with no coral for now, just do a FOWLR for a while.

Thanks for all the replies, gonna do about a 90% water change over the next few days, Somehow after a few hours I can see a few things look okay, 3 out of 4 clams still look good and a frogspawn and my duncans seem to look like they have a chance Ph is back up to 5 and temp is at 66. See if I can get any of the bottled bacteria to assist with the startup again.

 

If stuff still maybe kicking I would try to knock down the ammonia and get the temp back up before a water change. If stuff is stressed from that low temp you will wanna get em back up and then change the water with the appropriately matched water temp so as not to cause them anymore grief. Best of luck wish I could be of more assistance.

 

I think I would agree with the Trump, if you have some things still alive, get your temp. back up, add in prime and then do water changes. So sorry for your losses.

 

I do agree with them on this. I am currently thinking of ways to do a battery backup heater. In my house we have a battery backup sump pump. I plan on using some of those components. My tank dropped to 50 and luckily everything had lived. I wish you luck

 

does pet insurance cover fish??? uhh..ummmm Im reading into it after this terrible horror story, I am sorry for your loss.

I am glad the rest of us can learn and prepare thanks to your experiance, thats only positive outlook i can see resulting from this...