As many of you know, we lost power around 10 30 pm Wednesday and we still do not have it back on. We live on the second floor over a business and are just renting. I had a dremel and drill charged just in case to provide water movement in our tanks (12g 20g 30g) and felt pretty good if we lost power through the night. The place is all electric, heat, stove, water heater so the main problem was temperature. We woke up thursday and it was probably 55 in the apartment. I ran over to GregW place and got a battery converter to run a heater and power head but it was not enough. We made the decision for a mass relocation to my parents house about a mile away and they did have power. We made three trips and by this time we already had some losses in the tank. We setup a brute container with heater, powerheads, and a HOB filter at my parents and brought everything up to temperature. Quick tip: Putting a container in the bath tub and filling it up with warm water is a great way to bring the temp up.
So where are we now?
Fish: Flameback angel did not make it even for the move, dead in the morning. Our goby in the 30g was like the captain of the Titanic and did not want to come out. We lost one gold assesor during the transfer. All four of our clowns (two picassos, two black and whites), flame angel, blue spot jawfish, 2 cardinals, one gold assesor, mandarin, and cleaner goby all made it into the brute and are doing well. They ate last night and all four clowns are swimming together.
Inverts: Our bullseye pistol made the trip (even though he nipped my wife), the other two did not. We grabbed a handfull of snails and hermits but left a lot. They were at the low end of the priority list. Three out of four cleaner shrimp made it and both of our flame shrimp.
Corals: We were able to take about 90% of our frags, had to leave behind some pieces of live rock with zoas and what not on them. Again, time was a factor so we went for the nice stuff first and worked down from there. Don't know how they will pull through, we had some polyp extenstion and some zoas were even opening last night. I am grabbing my lighting fixture tonight so I will know more then.
Lessons:
Get a generator, this will happen again.
Have extra water laying around, we had around 12 gallons of salt mixed up which was key in getting the brute up and running. We also had 15 gallons of RO on hand so we will be doing a 5g water change tonight, and then continue through the weekend.
Have a brute (or something similiar) that can house your fish and corals if you need to consolidate. Without that container we were toast.
Small tanks lose heat quickly, beware all you nano people.
I know we are all a bit like pack rats, but keep extra powerhead and heaters around. When we upgraded to vortechs we kept all of our koralias around.
Find someone in your general area that if you need to setup a tank you can do that, kinda like a reefing buddy system.
So where are we now?
Fish: Flameback angel did not make it even for the move, dead in the morning. Our goby in the 30g was like the captain of the Titanic and did not want to come out. We lost one gold assesor during the transfer. All four of our clowns (two picassos, two black and whites), flame angel, blue spot jawfish, 2 cardinals, one gold assesor, mandarin, and cleaner goby all made it into the brute and are doing well. They ate last night and all four clowns are swimming together.
Inverts: Our bullseye pistol made the trip (even though he nipped my wife), the other two did not. We grabbed a handfull of snails and hermits but left a lot. They were at the low end of the priority list. Three out of four cleaner shrimp made it and both of our flame shrimp.
Corals: We were able to take about 90% of our frags, had to leave behind some pieces of live rock with zoas and what not on them. Again, time was a factor so we went for the nice stuff first and worked down from there. Don't know how they will pull through, we had some polyp extenstion and some zoas were even opening last night. I am grabbing my lighting fixture tonight so I will know more then.
Lessons:
Get a generator, this will happen again.
Have extra water laying around, we had around 12 gallons of salt mixed up which was key in getting the brute up and running. We also had 15 gallons of RO on hand so we will be doing a 5g water change tonight, and then continue through the weekend.
Have a brute (or something similiar) that can house your fish and corals if you need to consolidate. Without that container we were toast.
Small tanks lose heat quickly, beware all you nano people.
I know we are all a bit like pack rats, but keep extra powerhead and heaters around. When we upgraded to vortechs we kept all of our koralias around.
Find someone in your general area that if you need to setup a tank you can do that, kinda like a reefing buddy system.
