Poweroutage and feeding question...

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Dispatch273

Dispatch273

Jack Dempsey
MFK Member
Jul 22, 2011
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So due to hurricane irene my house has no power. I've got a battery operated air stone plus my tanks are planted. So far all of my fish are perfectly fine. The last time I fed them was Friday night, followed by a 50% WC on Saturday. We are probably not going to have power for another 5 days....so my question is, when should I start feeding them again? I could probably do another WC this weekend as we do have a bunch of water set aside for drinking/washing stuff lol. Should I just feed them one small feeding a day? Feed them every other day? I've never had to deal with this so thank in advance for any advice you can give me. Also one of the employees from my LFS told me that since I have plants in my tanks I shouldn't have to worry about the fish getting oxygen-is this true?
 
Dreamsofpeace54 said:
plants with no light will acutally take up more oxygen then they produce, not to worry though. your battery powered air pump along with the lower temps should keep everything fine. i would not feed them at all. what kind of filter do you have on the tank?
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Hello; I agree with this. Plant cell respire much like any living thing and need oxygen. Your battery bubblers should take care of the oxygen.
Five days or more without food should not be a issue for the fish. I have kept fish in buckets and such with only bubblers before for a week or two. I did feed them a little, but five days should not be a problem. I some times run my quarantine tanks with only a sponge filter for many weeks, but had live plants and lights. I did feed them.

Seems that a member posted some time back about having the filtration system of a tank unplugged for an extended period and then just turning it back on. As I recall they seemed to think that the stuff in the filter had spoiled during the off period and when turned back on it pushed that spoiled material into the tank and caused problems. Perhaps another member can recall the post or have some pointers on this.
 
^ agreed, clean your canister before turning it back on. the bacteria in the filters has died from starvation of oxygen or food. When the power comes back on and the canister/filter isnt clean then all the dead stuff will be pushed into the tank, not good. prepare for a mini cycle to occur on your tank. Take it easy on feedings and keep up the maintenance until all is back to normal
 
Dreamsofpeace54 said:
^ agreed, clean your canister before turning it back on. the bacteria in the filters has died from starvation of oxygen or food. When the power comes back on and the canister/filter isnt clean then all the dead stuff will be pushed into the tank, not good. prepare for a mini cycle to occur on your tank. Take it easy on feedings and keep up the maintenance until all is back to normal
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Couldn't he put the filter material in mesh bags and float in the tank. That way the biomaterial is still exposed to some animal waste and should be able to survive?
 
the bacteria in your canister is already dead.. you might as well clean it out now and be ready when it comes back on. get to the LFS and get some of the Tetra stuff with the bio-spira in it. or if you have a sponge filter in your tank now you could give it a good squeeze to help plant some good live bacteria in your canister when the power comes back on.

and don't forget to clean out the hoses.. there is nasty water and crap in them too.

good luck and i hope your power comes back on soon.
 
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