Lost a few things to nemo

morbidpete · Post by **morbidpete** » Mon Feb 11, 2013 7:58 pm

Biggest and saddest loss was our Flowerhorn. Had him for about 9 month's. Power went out while we where asleep, House temp dropped quick. Even with the 75gal tank, the water dropped fast. No way we could heat the water fast enough with the tank heaters. We put him in a 5 gallon bucket (he was only 5 inch's ) and threw the heater int he bucket with his tank water. Unfortunately it was to late. he was already sluggish and not responding well. But we tried. he was an awesome fish. We could hand feed him. He would always turn a real rich purple when we went near the tank. he danced lol.

All our albino bristle nose pleckos died but 1.

Lost a few mollies (common fish)

so all we have left are 2 golden dojo loach's, 1 beta, 1 plecko, 3 African Cichlids and 2 spotted catfish

Other not important and whatever stuff,

Lost a ton of roof shingles. Wind was reported @ 78MPH and we are on the sea wall, so no protection, My car would no longer start, junked it a few hours ago. and a tree. Lost power sometime Friday night and just came back on @ 11:30 this morning. at one point it was 22 in our house (minus the living room with the space heater) cooked and did dish's with an electric griddle and an electric kettle. Was able to get the internet up also using an old wrt54g as the gatewate way and dhcp server since all my systems were down (BTW my e-mail hosting backup strategy worked beautifully! )

Humboldt · Post by **Humboldt** » Mon Feb 11, 2013 10:19 pm

Sorry to hear about your losses. Car wouldn't start so it got junked?
Been there w/ the fish, never fun. Lost power for 8 days once and lost 95% of my fish, including Elvis the Oscar in an unheated shed. Tried adding warm water but without anything additional and no filtration he didn't make it.

Also had the weirdest tank experience ever. My CO2 kept going but without filtration or heat it got weird...bubbles of gas streaming up from the gravel and the water turned the color of milk. A few fish survived but not many at all.

Hope everything goes smoothly for you w/ the insurance.

morbidpete · Post by **morbidpete** » Mon Feb 11, 2013 10:28 pm

98 Dodge Stratus w/ 265k. Had it for 4 years. Paid $500 for it. Not worth putting any more moeny into it anymore. Needed a new coil. No spark.

I tried the Warm water route with the electric kettle, Worked fine on the 20&30 Gallon breeder tanks, But didnt make a dent on the 75gal with the flower horn, Just to much surface area with the cold. Even under a blanket.

As far as the CO2 and milky. The bubbles from the gravel, we so a partial gravel wash every month to prevent that. The biofilter that resides int he gravel just produces the CO from what i understand and it gets trapped int he gravel.

I always found that a small amount of aquarium salt and some water clear stuff (actually makes it more cloudy at first. its strange but works great) fixes the milky issue. Only had it happen a few times.

Shopping around for a new FH for V-day, There such a unique fish and super interactive. Also amazing to look at, just crazy crazy colors and patters.

Humboldt · Post by **Humboldt** » Mon Feb 11, 2013 10:41 pm

Might want to invest in a battery operated air pump. Won't do a thing for temperature changes but can help when the filtration is down.

When the milky thing happened it was weird as hell. Fluval 404 canister filer down, 2 passive CO2 generators going. I remember being on the phone with an ex when I noticed the fish at the top of the tank.

"Gotta go, my fish are dying"
"You need to be more social with my friends"

Never seen or heard of the gas release with other tanks. Bizarre.

morbidpete · Post by **morbidpete** » Mon Feb 11, 2013 10:49 pm

Humboldt wrote:Might want to invest in a battery operated air pump.

Yea, I actually started looking into temp alarms so it wont happen again. We did stir the water every hour, Well I did every hour since I had an alarm set every hour to check on the generator, so that was part of the routine. I think it was just the shock, The temp gauge only went down to 50, so it was well below 50. hard lesson learned, I think next time a storm is aproching, we will put them in smaller tanks ahead of time with blankets. Should be easier to maintain temp and Levels

Humboldt · Post by **Humboldt** » Mon Feb 11, 2013 10:54 pm

morbidpete wrote:Yea, I actually started looking into temp alarms so it wont happen again. We did stir the water every hour, Well I did every hour since I had an alarm set every hour to check on the generator, so that was part of the routine. I think it was just the shock, The temp gauge only went down to 50, so it was well below 50. hard lesson learned, I think next time a storm is aproching, we will put them in smaller tanks ahead of time with blankets. Should be easier to maintain temp and Levels

Depends on the duration of the the outage. Smaller the tank the more the temp will fluctuate. Larger tanks are more stable.

nightowl · Post by **nightowl** » Tue Feb 12, 2013 2:26 am

maybe invest in a server UPS battery system for your fish tanks? That why you have some time to get your generators going.

twwabw · Post by **twwabw** » Tue Feb 12, 2013 7:13 am

nightowl wrote:maybe invest in a server UPS battery system for your fish tanks? That why you have some time to get your generators going.

Yeah, used to do that when I had a salt tank. Works OK for filters and pumps, but heaters take way too much wattage.

Roody · Post by **Roody** » Tue Feb 12, 2013 9:47 am

Man that sucks MP. Sorry to hear that.