While painting our basement my dad decided to leave the window open and forgot about it over night. The tanks in the room have gone down to about 55. There is a 40 gallon with a jack dempsey, a 30 galon with small mbunas, and a 20 gallon with guppes and gouramis. I have been slowly raising the temperature in the tanks. Im assuming the jack dempsey will live because its nearly a fott long and is still swimming, but the rest are barley breathing and lying at the bottom of the tank. Does anyone have suggestions on what to do? I have never experienced anything like this before.
EMERGENCY HELP Cold water in tanks
- Thread starter oscarlover61898
- Start date
Not much you can do except close the window and gradually raise the temp. Let the heaters do their job. You could add a little warm (not too hot) water to the tanks but not so fast as to shock them anymore than they already are. Take out one gallon of cold add one gallon of warm every 15 mins. untill the tank is back into the low to mid 70's then let the heaters warm it up the rest of the way.
If everything survives keep and eye out of ick over the next week.
If everything survives keep and eye out of ick over the next week.
Yeah the dempsey has been around for quite a while and we feed it probably too much, so its gotten pretty massive. But I was wondering if anyone else has ever experienced this?
Its -40degrees here in lower MI and my 10gallon fry tank filled with 4day old red bellies (just now starting to swim a bit)
Dropped from 81degrees to 74degrees overnight.
not as drastic as yours but considering they are babies its just as dangerous....they are warriors though..didn't lose a single one yet. (Slowly warming mine up aswell) not a good morning for us.
Dropped from 81degrees to 74degrees overnight.
not as drastic as yours but considering they are babies its just as dangerous....they are warriors though..didn't lose a single one yet. (Slowly warming mine up aswell) not a good morning for us.
Hello; I had a similar experence a few years ago. The power was off for a few days and the tanks got down to the 50's. I just allowed the heater to warm things up. I did not add any warm water or take other measures to speed things up. As I recall all the fish pulled thru the initial peroid. Did not get an outbreak of ick. Hard to say if later deaths were in any way related, but do not recall that the rate of fish losses seemed any higher than normal.
My take is that fish endure temperature swings in a natural setting, although perhaps not down into the 50's. I have also had failed heaters and the fish pulled thru.
Good luck
My take is that fish endure temperature swings in a natural setting, although perhaps not down into the 50's. I have also had failed heaters and the fish pulled thru.
Good luck