My night could use a little insight

[m and m]

So my tank went electric free at roughly 4 o’clock today when I was at work. I got to her at roughly 8 and soon packed up everything once I could not find a generator to buy since they where all sold out. So a long story short my tank is 30 mins away at my Girlfriends house in a 20g crammed packed to the brim with coral. Now here is my questions. After I get home will the water in my fish tank be ok to place the corals in once they fix the transformer that was struck by lighting out side my house or is that stagnate water best tossed?
People please don’t wait till last minute to buy a generator like me. For some one who spends hundreds of dollars every week on new coral and not spend 100-200 on was playing Russian rullet with myself.

 

[TopNotchCorals]

How long has the water just been sitting??Oh and sorry to hear of the trouble this is causing I could only imagine

 

[m and m]

Im going to say 15-20 hours it will be still minuse the hour or two in the middle i was taking and dumping in the tank.

 

[Troylee]

Mine went out for over 8 hrs one time when the heater threw the breaker... Everything was fine and I had no casualties... I wouldn't sweat a few hours honestly...

 

[m and m]

Well everything is moved to my GF house already every thing "Looks" fine, i realy need to no if the water will be fine.

 

[Troylee]

Just saw your new post lol... Run the skimmer for a bit and add the stuff back in there, it should be fine....also lime a 25% waterchane wouldn't hurt if you have some mixed up...

 

[newnanoboy]

sorry to hear... i just bought a battery backup for my mp10 and became worry free of power outtages for 3 weeks now. i can't believe this thing could run for 72 hours if electricity goes out now. total piece of mind.

btw, i think your water should be good to go once the power is back on and you get some flow going again.

 

[TopNotchCorals]

I lost power to one of my past setups about 5 years ago for about 8 hours and I just did a 30% water change and got the parameters back to normal as my nitrates did climb a bit and the temp dropped to about 70,so after the WC and bringing the temp back up it was all good.There will be a lot of dietrus flying around after you turn the powerheads back on also,so if your gonna do a WC I would wait until after turning all flow back on to get most of it out

 

[wishntoboutside]

sorry to hear. sometimes those battery air pumps are enough for some systems but a back up battery system like the tunze or the vortech can help things a lilttle longer. a generator is good for things like this too. keeps the freezer a freezer. the nice ones are the quiet ones and are more expensive.. ie honda ones and such. I hope all turns out ok in the long run for ya=).

 

[cparka23]

I'd be more careful in reusing the old water, especially if it is powerless for 15+ hours. Test it for ammonia if you have any doubts.

The biggest thing to worry over is oxygen depletion, which can really take a toll on things that you might overlook. A couple years ago, I had a power outage last for several days and was mostly worried about the corals. I didn't even think about the cleanup crew, bristle worms, and other guys living in my rocks/sand. But when my SPS and LPS still looked salvageable, I had snails falling off the glass and worms crawling out of their hiding places because they had no oxygen. When that happens, your water will foul very quickly and won't be worth saving (it'll smell, too). Took about a day for this to happen on my lightly stocked open-top nano, and it went from visibly okay to out-of-the-question in a short amount of time. No offense to anyone, but I'm speaking from my experience with an extended outage on a nano. The difference between 8 hours and 20 hours is night and day. Needless to say, your results may vary.

If you can get a battery-operated air pump from the LFS, it'll make a huge difference. You might be able to keep things from dying off and fouling the water as quickly, if at all.

 

[johnanddawn]

my concern with the water is not (but of course is directly tied to) O2 depletion - it is CO2 accumulation - the CO2 build up has the effect of lowering the pH

in my power outage thread over a month ago - i was only completly out 5-6 hours and i had loses and severe browning of all sps
- but every system is different, i have a bacterial driven system using alcohol and mb7. when the power went out i believe respiration in the system loaded the tank with CO2 and severly effected the pH. when i got the water moving again the O2/CO2 balanced right out (evidence = fish showed no stress at all) but the damage done by the pH swing was evident for a month to come in the corals
- as for your specific question - i would change some water (not a crazy amount but some) and make sure the skimmer was running for at least 24 hours and test the params. the skimmer will balance out the CO2/O2 levels to atmospheric levels and you should be ok

on a side note a small tornado (funnel cloud act. about 4 miles from my house) put the power out for 25 hours yesterday/day before - but this time i did have my generator!!!

the need for a generator can not be overstressed

 

[m and m]

Can i have a system without live rock? If i leave this tank here for the summer could i just have heater,skimmer,powerheads and what not?