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  L# Power Outage
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illustrae
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female usa
Last week my area (NorthEastern United States, New Hampshire) had its first real cold snap of the season with lots of wind and rain, and the power went out due to tree branches falling on the power lines. We lost power around 5 am, and it didn't come back on until about 10pm that night. The temperature in the house dropped to about 60 degrees by noon, and there was really nothing I could do about it.
I have 4 tanks: a 7gal with shrimp, a 10 gal. with crayfish, a 30 gal with cories and gouramis, and a 65 gal. with a Pleco, SAEs and juvenile Angelfish. I wasn't worried about losing filtration, as all of the tanks are reasonably clean (water changes and gravel vacs every two weeks) and well planted, but the loss of their heaters worried me a lot. I didn't have thermometers in any of the tanks, so I don't know how much they dropped. I didn't feed any of the fish that day, and just waited and hoped for the best.
I honestly expected to start losing gouramis that very night, but I didn't. The next day when their water had warmed up, the gouramis were a bit sluggish, but everyone was alive and appeared to be doing fine. Two days later, however, I started losing angels. I had 6, and in one say I lost 3 of them. Another day later and I lost one more. I only have two left now, and I can only hope they're healthy enough to make it. All of the other fish are just fine.
Was it the cold snap and power outage that killed the angels? Are there other factors that I should consider? My parameters are Ph: 7.4, Ammonia: 0, Nitrites: 0, Nitrates 20-40. I have a case of green water in the 65 gal., too, but other than not being able to see the fish very well, it doesn't seem to affect water quality or the health of the fish.

Hoping that there must be a word for everything I mean...
Post InfoPosted 26-Jan-2006 11:55Profile AIM PM Edit Report 
Bob Wesolowski
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male usa
"Juvenile" angelfish is a very general term. Youg fish are much more susceptible to stress than older fish due to immature immune systems. The angels were hit with two stress points, a drop in water temperature and a potential drop in oxygen level. A third stress point was added when water temps began to rise as the rise may have been too fast...

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researched from Steven Wright
Post InfoPosted 26-Jan-2006 11:55Profile PM Edit Delete Report 
jasonpisani
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male malta
I agree with bob wesolowski & i also think that the cold snap and power outage was too stressfull for your Angels.


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Post InfoPosted 26-Jan-2006 11:55Profile MSN PM Edit Delete Report 
kitten
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Meow?
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female usa
I'm curious as to what you did with the filters in the time that the power was out. Doesn't the "good" bacteria turn bad when the water stagnates in the filter like that? Did you replace the filter media or just let the filters turn back on? Because in that case, anaerobic bacteria and other yuckies could have been introduced into the tank. Thankfully, the powerouts here are usually short-lived, so I haven't had to deal with it, but it's something I'd be concerned about in this case.

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Post InfoPosted 26-Jan-2006 11:55Profile Homepage AIM MSN Yahoo PM Edit Delete Report 
illustrae
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female usa
I did a water change and 1/2 filter media change the next day, but my filters are all fully submerged so I imagine that would slow down bacterial die-off. I could be wrong.

Hoping that there must be a word for everything I mean...
Post InfoPosted 26-Jan-2006 11:55Profile AIM PM Edit Delete Report 
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