Disaster!

[gunk]

So Thursday night, out of nowhere a crazy ice storm rips through New England, downing trees and powerlines all over. It's definitely the worst ice storm I've ever seen and my dad says it's the worst he's seen as well. Unfortunately, I lost power Thursday night and still have not had it restored. This obviously spells danger for my fish because they currently lack filtration and heating. The best I can do is change the water a couple times a day, keep the room dark, and try to let heat from the wood stove reach the tanks, but the water temp is currently in the low 60's and the fish don't look too well. My GBR's aren't moving much and seem really stressed, while my dad's Mbuna's are keeping to their rock caves.

I'm on campus now where power has been restored so I can finally come online but I have no idea when I'll get power at home again. Some people are saying as late as Thursday. Hopefully the fish can make it through!

[ILuvMyGoldBarb]

It's very important that you do not feed them much at all during this time. The lack of food will do 2 things. First, because of the colder temperatures, their metabolism has slowed down and too much food would cause internal problems. The second thing that not feeding them will do, is reduce the amount of waste being produced and thus keeping levels very low. The changing of the water will help with oxygenation. I hope things get back to normal for you soon.

[invadertoast]

I was in your boat! We lost power Friday early AM, but thankfully were able to borrow a generator on Sat. We got power back yesterday afternoon.

I taped hand warmers (the kind you take skiing) and threw blankets over my tanks, my tiger barb tank dropped to 64 but didn't get lower after using the hand warmers and a down blanket (I know the basement room temp. was colder than 64!) The tank in the living room stayed around 70 thanks to a blanket and the woodstove in the other room.

Good luck, I hope you get power back soon!

Edit: I didn't feed any of my fish until Monday, even though we had the generator running on Saturday, not sure if it did much but I was terrified of a mini-cycle. So far, so good

[Adrian]

Not sure if this will help or not, and not sure if you have a gas or electric stove. But if I were you, I would warm some water in a pan, and pour it into a plastic ziplock bag, then place it into the tank. It may up the temp a bit until the power comes on. It is kinda the reverse if the tank were hot by placing bags of ice in the tank...just a thought.....

[gunk]

Thanks for the help. I haven't fed the fish at all since Friday and don't plan to until tomorrow.

I would have done the hot water in a bag thing, but I haven't been home much this weekend and I don't want raise the temperature for an hour just to have it drop back down again because I'm not there to add new warm water. I feel like that would just cause more stress.

I've just been hearing reports that there's another 2-4 inches of snow and ice expected by tomorrow morning so I'm not really optimistic about anything right now.

[bushwhacker]

good luck i used to live in CT and 1 year we had a bad storm and lost power for 3 days lucky for me we lived on the top floor of a 3 story house so all the heat from below me rose to my apt. we made it thru with no losses but i do feel for ya

[mac]

Hi,
IMO I would rap it up in blanks to keep what ever heat is in their in the tank. Also when you are home for a day or so add some hot water bottles to the out side of the tank, in the blanks. I have found it to work when I get power cuts.

Hope all works out for you.

mac

[Northernguy]

A deep cycle battery and a power inverter,You can run a filter no problem.You just have to bring the battery to school to charge it.
It would probably be easier to find than a generator.
Good Luck!

[korith]

How is the tank doing? I heard earlier on the news that a lot of areas still were without power.

[gunk]

Yesterday the National Guard was all over my neighborhood cleaning things up, and I finally got power back this evening. Some smaller towns might not get power back until January.

Unfortunately, I lost my two GBR's. I managed to get a battery powered air pump yesterday, but it was too late for them. I wish I could have done more for them but the only LFS that would have held on to them for me wasn't open until 2 days ago. Also, it's finals week I've been pretty much living at the campus library. However, my oto's seem fine and are feasting on dying algae. My dad lost a catfish (which probably shouldn't have even been with the Africans in the first place) but everything else looks like they're starting to recover.

[korith]

Yesterday the National Guard was all over my neighborhood cleaning things up, and I finally got power back this evening. Some smaller towns might not get power back until January.

Unfortunately, I lost my two GBR's. I managed to get a battery powered air pump yesterday, but it was too late for them. I wish I could have done more for them but the only LFS that would have held on to them for me wasn't open until 2 days ago. Also, it's finals week I've been pretty much living at the campus library. However, my oto's seem fine and are feasting on dying algae. My dad lost a catfish (which probably shouldn't have even been with the Africans in the first place) but everything else looks like they're starting to recover.

Sorry to hear that. You know I always have bad luck like that too, right around midterms or finals time something would go wrong.