Power Outage going on 24 hours

[Knight]

Hello fellow reefers !
So I am trapped in DC on business travel and the hurricane knocked out my power around 1630 yesterday.
How long would you estimate that a larger mixed reef tank will survive without power ?
There is someone feeding the little monsters in the morning and at night.
My sumps are full and no overflow - so that is a nice validation of my measuring skills.
But i am a little worried about the no light. mostly btas, gorgoneans, zoas, toadstools, and duncans.
Any thoughts on how much mess I am going to be finding when I fly back on Friday ?

Thanks !

 

[this is me]

Light should be the least of your concern.
oxygen and temperature should be your most concern. It’s very difficult to say how long a specific tank will survive without power. It depends on the type animal you keep and the amount of animals you have.

 

[Reefer508]

Light should be the least of your concern.
oxygen and temperature should be your most concern. It’s very difficult to say how long a specific tank will survive without power. It depends on the type animal you keep and the amount of animals you have.

Agreed, you need water movement for O2, may be too late but who ever you have feeding ask them to scoop water out of tank and pour it back in. At least that would get a little O2 into the system. GL

 

[Reefer508]

Also, would they swing by Petco and get a battery powered air pump? PM me if they need help, I'm in Blackstone

 

[coralfishreef]

Light should be the least of your concern.
oxygen and temperature should be your most concern. It’s very difficult to say how long a specific tank will survive without power. It depends on the type animal you keep and the amount of animals you have.

My power was out for 5 hours last night. The tank temp on all my tanks was down by 3 degrees when the power came back.

There are anecdotes of tanks being okay without light for 3 days or longer. There are also anecdotes off fully stocked tanks crashing after just 2-3 hours without water movement or gas exchange - ammonia spike domino effect.

If it is nano or small tank with very little fish it might be okay.

I don’t know if you should feed the tank without water movement. Ask your friend to put in a battery-powered air bubbler or two if possible.

 

[Knight]

Thanks for the advice !! Going to try those air pumps and hope for the best !!
And we are going to reduced feeding.
I have a sally lightfoot in there, and even with regular feeding she tries to catch her tankmates.

 

[jazzsam]

Agreed, I have hear wide ranges of what is safe and what is not. I have heard both very short and very long times. I also agree water movement & temp are the most important.

 

[ileas]

I went a little over 12 hours and my 125g only dropped 2 degrees. Had a battery op air pump on the whole time and everything is fine today

 

[dz6t]

I will suggest stop feeding. Without water movement, feeding only increase oxygen consumption.
Battery powered air pumps is a good solution right now. Or a Reefbreeders RPM with USB battery pack.

 

[gobyvin]

@dz6t is absolutely right!!! Stop feeding and get that water moving. There are D battery powered air pumps that when plugged into an AC outlet that goes dead automatically turn on via battery power. I run my tanks with these as backup in case power quits. They will run 12 hours on a pair of fresh D batteries.
I got them on Amazon. Very inexpensive. Penn Plax makes them. Blue plastic housing.
There are many fancier models too, with lithium ion battery packs.

 

[officeaquachuck]

I suggest no feeding for the duration of the power failure.. feeding uses up a lot of o2. in 1 power fail I hooked up my scuba tanks and kept cracking the valve a bit, worked for 3 days!

 

[Sparent25]

I will suggest stop feeding. Without water movement, feeding only increase oxygen consumption.
Battery powered air pumps is a good solution right now. Or a Reefbreeders RPM with USB battery pack.

@dz6t I forgot about the usb connector on the RPMs!

 

[Knight]

Thanks for the advice all. Everything seems to have weathered the outage. He ended up getting 2 air pumps for both tanks. Power came back on Thursday. You guys are the best!

 

[frank180reef]

We lost power in October due to snow basement system got to 62
I lost 3 frags


I have gone away a week and left lights off, nothing died


Tank needs oxegen badly, expecially the fish