It has been over a month now since hurricane IKE http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hurricane_Ike hit Texas and my lesson learned is this: Be prepared to go without electricity for over 2 weeks. I was ready for everything... I thought. We had lots of batteries, water, and non-parishable food. The hurricane came straight up through Galviston and Houston and we had winds reaching 100mph. So many trees uprooted and snapped off... damage everywhere. I lost two trees in my yard and one was up against the house but didn't cause major damage.
It wasn't until the storm was over and the excitement subsided that I realized my tank had not been running for almost 24 hrs. My 16" Garaffe cat and 15" redtail cat were face up and flipped over gasping for dear life. I immediately drained 50% of the water and started the top off water running. I revived the fish by cradling the fish right side up and moving the newly oxygenated water through their gills. This was a temporary solution though. I had no way to keep the water circulating and oxygenated. I tried to keep the water fresh by doing multiple water changes but the overnight period without help had stressed them out again and the were in trouble. They succumbed and I lost them the next day.
We have only had 2 hurricanes come straight through Houston in the 28 years I'ved lived here and I'm not one to rush out to get a generator just in case. However if I at least had a bait airator and a deep discharge battery I could have got through this. By day 4 my nieghbors had generators running and offered a extension cord to run what we could.
I never figured that the cats would die and the oscar and vieja would survive. My monster catfish league signature is history I guess..
My LFS had some losses but for the most part came out ok.
When I decided to re-stock I added a male (hopefully) Dovii, a Red Devil, and 5 cutteri. This should get interesting!
It wasn't until the storm was over and the excitement subsided that I realized my tank had not been running for almost 24 hrs. My 16" Garaffe cat and 15" redtail cat were face up and flipped over gasping for dear life. I immediately drained 50% of the water and started the top off water running. I revived the fish by cradling the fish right side up and moving the newly oxygenated water through their gills. This was a temporary solution though. I had no way to keep the water circulating and oxygenated. I tried to keep the water fresh by doing multiple water changes but the overnight period without help had stressed them out again and the were in trouble. They succumbed and I lost them the next day.
We have only had 2 hurricanes come straight through Houston in the 28 years I'ved lived here and I'm not one to rush out to get a generator just in case. However if I at least had a bait airator and a deep discharge battery I could have got through this. By day 4 my nieghbors had generators running and offered a extension cord to run what we could.
I never figured that the cats would die and the oscar and vieja would survive. My monster catfish league signature is history I guess..
My LFS had some losses but for the most part came out ok.
When I decided to re-stock I added a male (hopefully) Dovii, a Red Devil, and 5 cutteri. This should get interesting!
