Power Outage..help

im not home right now and someone is watching my fish tank. They just called me and said that the power could be out for a while (im assuming for about 24 hours at most). Is this going to be a problem? what should i tell them to do?

28 gallon

 

what corals do you have

 

usually people with heavily stocked tanks with sps have to worry about power outages.3 years ago a hurricane hit virginia and knocked out power for 2 weeks. all my corals came out fine frogspawn, zoos, mushrooms

 

Make sure to get an air stone in the tank ASAP, you can buy battery powered ones. The biggest problem with power outages is that the water becomes anoxic due to lack of gas exchange. An air stone will keep the fishies happy. As for temperature issues, is it cold or hot there? If it is hot, get some ice, put it in a zip baggie and float it in the water. If its cold...er...put warm water in a baggie and put it in the tank?

 

+1 on the battery operated air pump. I keep one around just in case.......

 

I just went through the same thing with a hurricane.
You can tell the person fish-sitting to get a pitcher and fill up the tank water inside...
the person can then stand on a chair and pour the water back in from a distance above. This will get oxygen into the tank... repeat the process a few times every 30 minutes...

This is a suggestion, of course, if you don't have a battery powered pump, generator or other options left... it's a last resort....

Good luck,
Ryan

 

You can get a battery operated aerator with a tube and air stone in most local bait and Tackle shops from around $10 - $20. Two D batteries can run them for about 12-24 hours.

Wal-Mart carries them as well.

 

Did the power come back on? How did everyone fair?

 

i recently had a power outtage for 14 hours, and i ended up losing 90% of my fish and inverts. the corals were fine.
i now have a generator(strong enough to power the whole house), which is what i recommend to anyone who has alot of time and money invested in their tanks. atelast one that will power the tank.
i never thought i needed one because the power rarely went out here for more than 30 minutes, but now i'm safe.
there are also dc to ac converters you can plug into your car cigarette lighter that are affordable and a big help. i have used this one in the past with success-

 

sorry i didn't reply to everyone;my power ended up coming back on so everything ended up being ok. I recently bought UPS battery back up and a battery operated aerator for such emergencies. Thanks for all the info!