Emergency came home from vacation... OUTAGE!!!

I came home to a dark aquarium, the power went while I was gone. Temp 71, several dead fish. Yellow tang is not dead yet. I put some prime in for ammonia levels. Some are still alive but dont look very good what should I do with the yellow tang? It is laying on the bottom but breathing. Is there any hope. Blue tang is just kinda stuck in the rocks. Suggestions on water changes, temp coming back etc. Please help. I turned my heaters up to 75 not to raise the temp to fast. before they were unplugged as the heat from the lights along with the summer was sufficient. Thanks

 

I'd go at it this way:

As quick as you can get some circulation going in the DT using a PH, and if possible some air stones... Leave the sump pump off until you complete water testing....

Once this is going, fish out what has died and start water testing. Run a full set of tests in both the tank and sump... if the are not much different, then it would be safe to re-start your filtration systems...

Based on the above tests, start preparing for a water change, likely not less than 5% and probably not more than 20%, and continue these daily until testing shows that the parms are back in band...

Good luck...

 

when I got home I reset the GFCI and everything came back on. I started all equipment before the first post, as I have power now. Circulation has been going back for about an hour now. the coral and fish look a bit better now, but still not good.

 

exactly how long as the power been off?

 

Then I'd start testing to see what the current parms are and proceed based on the results...

 

Do some tests for ammonia and nitrates. Adding prime helps. Also try adding a bioculture like Seachem Complete or Brightwell Aquatics MicroBacter7. This will boost your biological filtration and allow for toxins to be processed. I would put the skimmer on wet and skim a lot.

Do 20% water changes for the first 2 days, 10% next 3 days and 5% next 2 days.

You can try AZ-NO3 to remove nitrates. Make sure your tank gets plenty of oxygen.

You could also try Vitamin C to help the fish recover from tissue damage.

Post some pictures so we can help you better. Also some reading of water chemistry.

This is why i dont use GFCI

 

GFCI seems like a good safety precaution (I still remember feeling an arm numbing 'tingle' from my old 125 setup) but I didn't want to find myself with this kind of outage. My compromise was to spend a little more money and install GFCI breakers in the panal box. I'm told that GFCI breakers are much more resistant to accidental tripping due to high draw items kicking on.

 

Power has been off possibly since Tuesday. Neighbor said hers went out for a short time then : (

Ammonia is at .25
About to test Nitrite and Nitrate. My nitrites must be high also b/c two of my fish have cloudy eyes and I heard that is from nitrite. My question is though I usually do all these tests, but when it comes down to it the only real thing to help is water changes, right? I mean there is no real action to take because of the readings right?

 

BTW, thanks for all the quick replies!

 

you could see if LFS will house them for a few days. those kinds of ammonia readings are going to be really bad on anything left.