What's the Lowest Temperature Your Corals Survived?

[JimFuller]

In Montana, We get snow and cold. Over the years, I have had my tanks down to the 60's. Most times I have had a little regression, but very little loss. Everybody gets unhappy, even me at those temperatures

 

[Sea MunnKey]

2013 ice storm knocked out hydro for 7 straight days in my neighbourhood and internal temperature hovered around more or less than 53 degrees (with generator). Fish were the first to die and then acros and even my Rhyzos. The only thing that survived was two indo gonioporas & the darn bristleworms ....

 

[slipknotgrrl83]

Due to heater issue mine has gone down to 75 (usually keep 79 to 79.5) no issues other then ticked off corals for a bit

 

[Justin Swinney]

I had a power out in the cold for over 12 hrs so I used my car and a power inverter as a makeshift generator and ran my heater and powerheads

 

[siggy]

sorry to hear about the tank and the loss of power, I have one of those small inverter generators it's about 35 lbs and a good cord been a lifesaver. It seems the power has gone out more in the last year since i got back into
the salt hobby than the last 5 years....BTW I hope this cheers you up

 

[fragit]

My power was out for 6 days this October and early November. Battery backup for my Gyre lasted 14 hours. No generator, we are currently working on that. Temp dropped to 56 degrees. Lost 3 of 7 fish(2 Anthias and Wrasses lived). All my soft corals and most of my LPS. 2 acans lived a small piece of my colt coral, a purple gorgonian, and I was able to salvage a little bit of a toadstool. Not a total loss but it felt horrible. Hang in there!

 

[CindyKz]

No wisdom to add to this thread but hoping for the best, Dana! Snow in Georgia is just WRONG.

 

[Genesis 1:10]

I am in Atlanta also (actually Acworth) and had no power for 49 hours. We had close to a foot of snow. I have some things in place to survive a short outage but not 49 hours. I was able to get a car battery and use an inverter I had to run a heater and 1 powerhead off and on until the battery got weak and then would only run the powerhead. The tank is in the den where we could keep the room between 57 - 62 thanks to the fireplace. The rest of the house got down to 47 and lower. My wife is a chemist at a lab and she made a suggestion that really helped. We were able raise the temp 2 - 3 degrees through this process pretty much as we wanted. We have a gas water heater so we still had hot water. When we lost power I ran the thermostat up on the water heater so we could have hot drinks and instant foods you just add water too. We had scalding water coming out of the tap. In her lab my wife cools things down by soaking them in bags in cool water. She recommended we do the opposite with the tank water. We would fill zip lock bags with tank water and soak it very hot water in a tub in the sink. Once it warmed up we poured it back in the tank. Our tank is small compared to most at 56 gallons but each bag would raise the temp .1 - .2 degrees or so. We would do this process every couple of hours. It wasn't much fun, especially at 3:30am, but did work. All the fish are fine as well as 90% of corals and I think the rest may come around. I think this would work for a larger tank. It would obviously take longer to raise the temp but it would drop slower as well. Another good thing about this process is that it helped aerate the tank with the taking and pouring back in of the water. I hope you come out better than you think you will.

 

[Rick Cavanaugh]

I have frags in a seahorse system that has been at 72 for months. Slow growth. This morning it was 67

 

[Donaldf973]

Few years ago up here in Jersey we had a hurricane and no power in my town for about a week. In my main tank temp dropped to 55. All the fish and coral died except a maroon clown, tomato clown, snails, green palys and a brown monti cap. My basement frag tank hit 35 degrees a few sps frags, sunburst and inferno anemone survived but all the softies died.

 

[David S]

During Hurricane Sandy the temp in the tank was about 60 degrees for several days.
Incredibly, all of my corals survived. The only one that was problematic was a dendro which took a few months to recover.

 

[Reef of Fillory]

When I was transferring my tank to my current apartment, I threw my heaters out. It was during the summer/fall and I had [accidentally] left the windows open. My fish/rock were in a large 35 gallon rubbermaid tub on the floor. I had planned to go to the LFS and get new heaters the next day. I woke up and my thermometer in the tub said 62.5 degrees. I freaked out, ran to Petco and got a smaller heater than I needed and slowly brought the temperature up.

Everything survived [2 bangaii cardinals, 2 clowns, diamond goby, emerald crabs, snails, tuxedo urchin, brittle star - no SPS - I had a chalice, hammer, toadstool, zoas and octospawn. My corals weren't difficult to keep corals so I'm sure that factored in to their success. I would estimate that the tank was <65 degrees for 10 or so hours, and then slowly came back up over ~6 more hours out of cautiousness

 

[wopadobop]

I had a heater get unplugged over night during a tank transfer . Had the corals get down to around 62 . Only loss was the birds nest . Straight up polyp bail out . And an Idaho grape month cap . Everything else recovered . It seems duration is the enemy not the temp itself I am thinking .

 

[vlangel]

I also had a chiller stick on and when I found it, the tank was down to 49°. I slowly raised the temperature over 4 hours and did not lose a single coral, not even my blue crocea clam. I lost 2 chromis and a damsel however a purple firefish, my tomato clownfish and 2 anthias survived the deep freeze.

 

[cycled123]

King of DIY suggests Calcium Chloride (Ice Melt) and water in water bottles. I have a stash of ice melt just in case. Knock on wood haven't had to use it the 2 years I've had it. Between this and propane fireplace in basement I'm hoping to be able to weather a longer outage.

 

[drblakjak55]

Hurricane Sandy. Eight days no power. No generator, etc. Did have battery powered air. Tank got to 66. Every morning before work I’d pour in a gallon of almost boiling RO water, than after work again a hot gallon. Temp 66. Flame hawk fish only loss

 

[Rich Hanks]

I run my two heaters in the display tank on the back wall in the corners. I would rather have them there opposed to below in the sump in case of an emergency. This way if I have issues with power I can keep minimal flow with the powerheads and run the heaters with out having to circulate the water from under the tank. I use battery powered air bubblers for circulation and air when I have to. The main pump requires far more energy that I would rather use keeping system alive. The new heaters are black on a black background so you don't even see them. The last power outage came recently and I was at work, power out for 12 hours. Wife does not know how to set up the generator, wont even begin to start. But she can turn on a battery powered air stone and drop that into the tank.

 

[Rich Hanks]

I run my two heaters in the display tank on the back wall in the corners. I would rather have them there opposed to below in the sump in case of an emergency. This way if I have issues with power I can keep minimal flow with the powerheads and run the heaters with out having to circulate the water from under the tank. I use battery powered air bubblers for circulation and air when I have to. The main pump requires far more energy that I would rather use keeping system alive. The new heaters are black on a black background so you don't even see them. The last power outage came recently and I was at work, power out for 12 hours. Wife does not know how to set up the generator, wont even begin to start. But she can turn on a battery powered air stone and drop that into the tank.

 

[Mark Gray]

wow sorry to here this, yeah all that snow delayed my flight and held me up for another 3 hours in customs. glad my home didn't loose power, but when the hurican came through I did. I used my truck to run the tank

 

[lolsubii]

My toddler turned the switch off for both of my heaters one day and the tank dropped down to 66 which is what I keep my house at. The tank was like that all night until I fed everyone the next morning. Zero casualties and my sps started showing PE again at 70.