power outage caused ammonia spike

[WalksWIthGobies]

We had a horrendous storm here in Iowa and our power was out for 30 hours, therefore my aquarium filter was off for 30 hours. I noticed once the power came on the water looked cloudy so I did an ammonia test and it was somewhere between .25 and .5 so I did a large water change which brought the ammonia down to .1 so hoping the filter will start keeping up again soon.

 

[Dalfrey86]

Glad you're safe, central Illinois got hammered yesterday afternoon.

 

[duanes]

I posted this before, but here it is again, maybe.....its apropos, and might help others
We had a power outage a while back that lasted a day, not a problem.
But when the power was restored, the ensuing power surge fried my tanks water pump, and two ceiling fans.
Being isolated on an island from the Covid crisis, it took almost a month to get a replacement, so no water movement or aeration for that duration.
I was able to keep the bacteria in the sump alive by pouring @ 4 gallons of water into the tank once every "daylight" hour, it overflowed into the sump, which then overflowed into the yard.
I only lost 1 fish during that time (probably not enough O2), and the filter seemed to handle the lag.
I used gallon jugs with a hole punched to break surface tension of the tank.

 

[WalksWIthGobies]

I posted this before, but here it is again, maybe.....its apropos, and might help others
We had a power outage a while back that lasted a day, not a problem.
But when the power was restored, the ensuing power surge fried my tanks water pump, and two ceiling fans.
Being isolated on an island from the Covid crisis, it took almost a month to get a replacement, so no water movement or aeration for that duration.
I was able to keep the bacteria in the sump alive by pouring @ 4 gallons of water into the tank once every "daylight" hour, it overflowed into the sump, which then overflowed into the yard.
I only lost 1 fish during that time (probably not enough O2), and the filter seemed to handle the lag.
I used gallon jugs with a hole punched to break surface tension of the tank.
View attachment 1428497

Pretty darn creative.

 

[WalksWIthGobies]

Glad you're safe, central Illinois got hammered yesterday afternoon.

Thanks yeah we got off a lot better than some around here. A lot of people in Iowa still don't have power and won't for days. After the storm yesterday my wife and I decided that rather than sit in a dark house we drive to Ankeny for our usual Monday lunch at our favorite restaurant, not knowing the extent of the storm due to no TV or radio. Highway 35 was closed due to overturned semis and the rural roads were wrought with downed powerlines and grain silos. OMG we made it anyway but it was really really a stupid thing to do.