I was looking at one of my growout tanks today and noticed the thermometer reading was abnormally low at just under 70 degrees. I looked at the next tank over and saw that it was low too, I did a quick scan of all nearby tanks and they were low and the heater lights weren't on. Turned out that my roommate had forgotten to turn back on the heater power bar for those tanks when we did the water changes on Monday evening. I noticed that some of the smaller fry seemed to be swimming sideways which worried me tremendously.
I've turned the heaters back on and set them all to a flat 70, they used to be around 80 but I don't want to raise it up too quickly and shock the fish again. The tanks have been without heat roughly 36 hours. I am wondering if I should be expecting an outbreak of ich and if so whether I should start treating the tanks for it in advance rather than wait ? How long should I take to raise the temperature back up to 78 - 80? I was thinking that by tomorrow evening we could be back up there but Im worried that may still be too quick. Any ideas?
I've turned the heaters back on and set them all to a flat 70, they used to be around 80 but I don't want to raise it up too quickly and shock the fish again. The tanks have been without heat roughly 36 hours. I am wondering if I should be expecting an outbreak of ich and if so whether I should start treating the tanks for it in advance rather than wait ? How long should I take to raise the temperature back up to 78 - 80? I was thinking that by tomorrow evening we could be back up there but Im worried that may still be too quick. Any ideas?
) most likely does. It's free floating all the time. You don't just randomly introduce ich. It's just can't really attack your fish unless conditions are right and your fish are stressed. Last January, we lost power for 11 days, with outside temps ranging from teens-30. Thank god I have a gas water heater and was able to do water changes about every 4 hours. That in conjunction with lots of blankets and towels all over the tank kept the tank in the 50-60 degree range. I couldn't keep it any warmer, and was sure I was going to lose fish. When power did finally come back, I left the tank covered and let the heaters do it on their own. I was afraid if I started doing too much, I would stress them more. All that said, I didn't lose any fish. This was in a 135. If the tanks are much smaller than that, don't raise the temps any more than a couple degrees a day, and let it slowly make it's way back up.