How did you come out of the outage?

[Jan]

Lights are on!!!! House is 84 degrees, ugh. Fish are all doing fine except I lost the goby that jumped. Thought he'd make it but he didn't.

 

I did a water change yesterday on my QT and the large male watanabei that's been in Qt with a female GW and female bellus broke out with ich again. How could that be? I've been treating that tank with copper and formalin. I did a water change to the QT and lowered the SG to 1.010 in addition to the meds. I don't understand. A resistant strain of ich?

 

Also got the most gorgeous zebra angel from live aquaria today. I wanted a spotbreast Angel but they sent a zebra. Hey, It was free. He's in a bucket. Interesting thing is that he came in 1.015 SG from LA whereas the other fish that came from DD came in 1.025. check your water when ordering from Drs Foster and Smith. Undecided about putting this fish in the medication tank. What do you think?

Edited July 4, 2012 by Jan

[treesprite]

Fabiana (Angelnotfish) was just here setting a tank up at my place, because she was told she won't have electricity until Friday. My friends who live in Sterling still have no electric - they have a 55g FW tank and everything is dead.

[Steve175]

Still no power and can't catch a break: my 20kW generator stopped this evening. I scrambled as all my tanks were silent and warming and finally figured out that it had stopped due to low oil pressure. I had happened to check the oil in it less than 2 weeks before. I think with constant running and the heat, the oil may be being consumed more rapidly. Refilled the oil and got it back running. I suggest that those of you still relying on generators check the oil gauge. $0.02

[Coral Hind]

That's a good reminder! My portable generator dropped about a 1/4 in oil level after being run for about 30 hours.

[Jan]

True. Our generator started getting louder and vibrating after 3.5 days. My husband said he needed to shut it off and do some maintenance on it; tighten things, oil check, etc.. I plugged all essentials for the tanks into battery back ups while he worked on the generator. As soon as he added more oil the noise level went down and it didn't appear to be pulling as hard. A little maintenance goes a long way with these.

 

Still no power and can't catch a break: my 20kW generator stopped this evening. I scrambled as all my tanks were silent and warming and finally figured out that it had stopped due to low oil pressure. I had happened to check the oil in it less than 2 weeks before. I think with constant running and the heat, the oil may be being consumed more rapidly. Refilled the oil and got it back running. I suggest that those of you still relying on generators check the oil gauge. $0.02

[Big Country]

Well, my power finally came back on this afternoon at 1:00 something like 110 hrs without power if my math is correct. Finally saw the mystery wrasse when I was mixing some water, still keeping my fingers crossed for the McCoskers and the Leopard. Lights should be on soon so I'll see how everything looks and hopefully my missing fish appear.

[DaveS]

Power is back after 109 hours. No losses so far but one SPS colony has some tissue loss at the base. I turned on some of the lights for a couple of hours a day the last two nights but not sure it was enough to do anything. Tank is very lightly stocked. Used a small generator to run the main pump 3-4 hours every 8 hours or so. Had battery airstones and vortech battery backup running while the main pump was off. None of the livestock ever showed signs of distress.

 

Now I'm more worried about having the lights on full blast immediately after 4+ days of mostly darkness.

[Coral Hind]

I don't think the lights are a big issue. I view it as a four day cloudy period on the reef and then the clouds go away.

 

I have two colonies that lost some tissue near the bottom and inside. I'm thinking I need to have more flow in the tank next time.

[Steve175]

Am I the last one hobbling? Day 5 with no end in sight . . . And I need to head out of town for a work trip tomorrow . . . [moment of silence please] . . .

[roni]

Oh man, sorry to hear that. Is there a neighbor or another reefkeeper that's close by that can check in? Your generator is working though? Would the electrician be able to transfer over your AC to your generator? I think a 20KW should be able to handle a 2.5 ton ac fairly easily, from what I've learned while looking at these.

 

If not, maybe get frags of any of your prize corals into other tanks and/or get someone with power to hold your fish? A simple 55 with a couple of sponge filters should be okay for a short time. I've got some space if you need it as well.

[LCDRDATA]

FYI, I just found that Consumer Reports is testing generators as we speak (see news item here) and according to the article should have results sometime later this month. They also have a generator buying guide on their website. If you're looking for a generator it may be worth waiting to see what the results are before committing.

[squiddly]

120 hours here. Like OldReefer, I thought I was prepared. 40 kw generator had been installed many years ago with regular maintenance and weekly exercise, powers the AC in the part of the house where the tank is, powers well pump, fridge, freezer, microwave, Internet, computers etc. No stove, oven, vacuum cleaners, washing machines or dryers :-). Power went down around 10pm Friday night, generator kicked on and i thought all was fine. Internet went down soon thereafter. Cell service and land lines were also down. 911 service and hospital telephones were down. Next day, the DH (Dear Husband) began checking oil on the generator, which was a very good thing as it was using a lot. Tried to get gas for the car, but forget it. We live off Georgetown Pike which was closed. Our normal route to the Tyson's area was also closed. Snaked around to try Reston - roads were closed there too. We gave up and went home. As the days wore on, it was possible to get food, gas and ice. Then on Wed. AM, the generator seized. The alternator had burned itself out. It was a holiday, so forget about finding the part that day. Auto shops were open, so a friend had the bright idea of using my Prius as a portable generator. I did some research via the iPad (thankfully there was enough signal, since the Internet was down) and it seemed feasible. He brought us an inverter, we plugged it in as recommended, and we had ourselves a small generator that ran the fridge, pumps, and some fans (thank goodness). Just as I'd filled a pan up with ice to put in front of the fan for the night, power came back 120 hours later, almost to the minute, on Wed. night.

 

Fish were ok. Lights were out for much of the time to keep them cool and save power on the generator. The lights out didn't kill the red algae or green hair algae, however. Bah humbug. Anemone, zoanthids and polyps did ok. It's a 24 gallon tank, so it would have been relatively easy to keep cool with ice, unlike you guys with your huge tanks.

 

What a nightmare. Sincere condolences to everyone who lost stuff from their tank.