A Living NIGHTMARE!!!!

seannmelly

seannmelly

Active Member
The past 24 hours have been a living NIGHTMARE. We live in Upstate, NY and yesterday our county(Montgomery CO) was in a state of emergency. The Mohawk River and Scoharie Creek were flooding, major roads cloads, bridges closed. The power goes out on my way home from work around 8pm yesterday. At the time we didn't know that the power was SHUT OFF on purpose because of the local flooding. We had no idea when the power was going to come back on and stupidly did not have anything to back up our tank. This morning we wake up to dead fish and shrimp
I honestly did not even go to work, I couldn't there was too much to do and help with here.
In all, we lost the following out of our 125 reef:
6-8"Male Blonde Naso with HUGE streamers
3 yellow tangs
4" Hippo tang
3 squamipinnis anthias
2 large cleaner shrimp
1 fire shrimp
among the missing are:
six line wrasse
lawnmower blenny
diamond sleeper goby
still alive are:
all of our corals thank god!
yellow watchman
purple firefish
3 green chromis
gold stripe maroon clown
and a green mandarin that is questionable right now...
and finally at 4 pm today the power came back on. I don't know what we are going to do with this tank from here on out. Just had to rant because I am so angry right now.
Melly
 
promisetbg

promisetbg

Active Member
So sorry to hear this. Sadly..you could have saved them for under $20. Here in Florida where the power goes off frequently with hurricanes and such..we are always prepared. The least thing you can do{but it works} is throw in a capful of hydrogen peroxide per 50 gal.,then there are pumps which plug into the wall..when they sense a power outage they kick on a set of batteries.Putting an airstone at the end of it will keep oxygen to the tank. Then as we all know there are more sophisticated things such as generators..but for me, at least having something I can do is a comfort.
 
seannmelly

seannmelly

Active Member
Thanks you guys for the condolinces(sp?), I appreciate it.
promisetbg, I get the feeling of insensitivity, but I hope I am wrong. The generator was at my boyfriend's grandpa's house, like I said in my post, most of the roads around here had been shut down since early yesterday morning. There was no way we could have gotten it yesterday. This morning only a couple roads were reopened and we got it, but most of the damage had already been done
. Did not know about the hydrogen peroxide...Now that the generator is back at our house, my boyfriend's dad is kind of enough to let us use it to run part of the fish tank. They have lived here almost their whole life and this kind of this has never happened before.
Once again, thank you everyone for the sympathy...on a brighter note, I saw the lawnmower blenny and he is well!!!
Melly
 
promisetbg

promisetbg

Active Member
Never..never am I here or giving advice to be snide or insensitive. I do it for the love of this hobby and to help others learn the things I have learned, and hopefully avoid problems,pitfalls, etc. I was trying to help with the quick and easy things you or others might not know..like the peroxide trick or the battery operated pump. I never knew those things before I came to work where I do,and learned alot from my previous boss and through experience. Intention is the hardest thing to convey in written words. I am honestly sorry that we are even having this conversation.
 
fedukeford

fedukeford

Active Member
that sucks, weve been in a state of emergency for 2 days now in Vestal, NY luckly no poweroutages..... yet.... but my moms office is suposed to be under 13 feet of water/sewage which wont be good, the susquhana is litteraly AT the road on 434
 
seannmelly

seannmelly

Active Member
Originally Posted by promisetbg
Never..never am I here or giving advice to be snide or insensitive. I do it for the love of this hobby and to help others learn the things I have learned, and hopefully avoid problems,pitfalls, etc. I was trying to help with the quick and easy things you or others might not know..like the peroxide trick or the battery operated pump. I never knew those things before I came to work where I do,and learned alot from my previuos boss and through experience. I am honestly sorry that we are even having this conversation.

I'm glad that you didn't come back swinging as many people do here. I just wanted to make sure that I didn't take your post the way I almost did!! I appreciate the help and advice. Ok, so tell me about this peroxide trick?? I'm paranoid as it is adding anything "unusual" to my tank!! lol. Thanks again!
Melly
 
promisetbg

promisetbg

Active Member
It really should only be done as a last resort..but it will give oxygen to the tank for three or four hours. My old boss taught me this..he is a marine biologist.
 
seannmelly

seannmelly

Active Member
Originally Posted by promisetbg
It really should only be done as a last resort..but it will give oxygen to the tank for three or four hours.
Didn't know that, and it would have been a last resort too!! Thanks
 
bang guy

bang guy

Moderator
Too late for you (sorry) but I thought I'd share...
Battery powered air pumps do a whole lot. They circulate water and help gas exchange. They're relatively inexpensive and very effective. Especially 3 or 4 at a time.
 
seannmelly

seannmelly

Active Member
we were without power from yesterday around 8pm to today at 4pm when it finally came back on. but by this morning...the damage was done.
fedukeford, here what we worry about is the mohawk river and the scoharie creek. fonda and fultonville is destroyed. lock 10 on the mohawk river is destroyed. its still pretty bad over here.
 
promisetbg

promisetbg

Active Member
Anoher thing I thought of that will work in an emergency situation. The use of something as simple as a pitcher will work to oxygenate the water. This would require more vigilence, but it will work. All you have to do is get a large pitcher, gal. jug, etc....dip into the tank, hold the pitcher high in the air above the water...and pour back into the tank. Simple,but effective. You could do this for several minutes a couple times per hr. and it would probably be enough to keep things alive.
 
seannmelly

seannmelly

Active Member
Originally Posted by promisetbg
Anoher thing I thought of that will work in an emergency situation. The use of something as simple as a pitcher will work to oxygenate the water. This would require more vigilence, but it will work. All you have to do is get a large pitcher, gal. jug, etc....dip into the tank, hold the pitcher high in the air above the water...and pour back into the tank. Simple,but effective. You could do this for several minutes a couple times per hr. and it would probably be enough to keep things alive.

yea i knew i could do that but the funny thing was that mabye 2 weeks ago the power was out for alot longer and the fish survived fine. this time it was more severe and had human lifes being risked so i wasnt worried about the fish tank that much, i thought they would be fine just like a couple weeks ago. i guessed wrong and lost 1/2 of the fish.
 
lt34

lt34

Member
So sorry for your loss.
Asking others, I have the small battery powered unit, when you talk about the one that kicks on when the power goes out, is that the one you use for computers (APC) or something special for fish tanks? Paranoid about power failure when not home1
 
dogstar

dogstar

Active Member
seannmelly, I too am sorry to hear of the loss.
I am posting this to help you and anyone esle that may be reading the thread because everyone can be faceing a simular situation in the future. After H. Fancis hit Florida in '04 I had bought this little battery air pump. Did not need it then but in '05 when H. Wilma hit. I lost power for 10 days......
This one pump kept my fully stocked 150g reef alive without any other equipment. I was suprised. Even the corals and anemones survive with just a little bleaching from no lights but all recovered. I wish I had another one at the time to run in the fuge because most of it died.
They cost under 20 bucks and run on 2 D size batteries for about 1 1/2 to 2 days. I went thru some batteries but it was worth it.
 
lt34

lt34

Member
I have just the battery powered one you can buy at Walmart. I lost power for a while with Hurr. Charley, Frances, and Jeannin. The one your showing is the one that will turn on when that power fails automatically?
 
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