Jump to content

Power outage


ineke

Recommended Posts

  • HOF Member

Well after all the heat we had a storm last night and early morning and many districts without power. Ours went out around 5 am and wasn't meant to come back on until 2100 tonight but luckily it came back on around 11 am . We didn't know it had gone off until I went into the shrimp room at 8 am and saw everything was off. Almost panic stations but that never helps so I disconnected my canister and the over head trickle filter on another tank. Luckily none of my tanks are heavily stocked and as it had cooled down drastically from yesterday's 40 degree heat so oxygen wasn't a huge problem for the tanks.

First thing I did was a water change for all the tanks . The bacteria would have died in the canister and trickle filter so they were rinsed and cleaned in RO water and put back ready to go - I didn't connect the canister because I wanted to flush it again when the power came on as it had plain RO water in it.

Anyway no shrimp losses yet so I'm hoping it will all be OK. will do a water test a bit later to see if I get any ammonia spikes and have enough RO made up to do more water changes if need be.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Oh dear….hopefully the tanks are matured, and will see the canisters quickly. Besides O2, nitrates needs to be continually tested….I'd throw in some macropore/purigen or nitrazorb as an insurance policy if you have them. No harm doing another WC if time permits today.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • HOF Member

Will test for ammonia and nitrates shortly and can do another water change after dinner. Luckily the tanks have been setup for quite some time and also had sponge filters in them so the canister and trickle filters weren't the only filter in the tanks. everything looks good at the moment and fingers crossed they will be OK.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I'm confused...

why did you have to disconnect the canister filter?

Even if I turn my eheim off the water is still in there?

also there would still be heaps of bacteria in sponge filters/soil/plants etc

shrimps produce hardly any waste compared to fish as well so no need to panic lol!

ive kept shrimp in a bucket for a weeks with nothing but an air pump and recently I've had cherry fry in cup of water for 3-4 days with nothing but moss and a piece of ial

:)

Link to comment
Share on other sites

If you're worried about power outages you might want to look at a UPS(uninterrupted power supply) they use them for servers & mainframes, & seeing as you have solar it would be perfect. The batteries kick in in a split second(quick enough that even computers don't notice) & then when the power comes back on the solar charges the batteries back up for next time. There's a few fish guys up here that have them. :encouragement:

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • HOF Member

The bacteria in the canister would have died after sitting in a non circulating water. When the power comes back on all that dead bacteria would go into the tank and cause an ammonia spike . The power was off for over 6 hours - not good- believe me I lost a whole tank of beautiful Chocolate shrimp when my over head trickle filter stopped working- even with other filters in the tank , unfortunately I switched the filter back on once i unblocked it and didn't know about the dead bacteria and since I didn't initially clean the trickle filter all the bacteria went back into the tank . I managed to save some of the shrimp but it was pretty devastating. The tank smelt awful quite an acrid smell you can't forget it once you smell it.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • HOF Member
If you're worried about power outages you might want to look at a UPS(uninterrupted power supply) they use them for servers & mainframes' date=' & seeing as you have solar it would be perfect. The batteries kick in in a split second(quick enough that even computers don't notice) & then when the power comes back on the solar charges the batteries back up for next time. There's a few fish guys up here that have them. :encouragement:[/quote']

We have an inverter for our caravan battery system so Alan is going to set me up with the 2 batteries and the inverter so if we lose power again I will have a back up- but of course we would need to be aware of the power failure and switch it over.

if there is a power failure as today the solar system cuts off as a safety precaution so we can't rely on solar for that.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I dont think a UPS would be much help if power is out for hours though, UPS are meant to give the user enough time to save all their work before losing hours of work on their computer. I would look in investing in a portable power generator (petrol run) at the prices they go for these days (few hundred) it is worth it.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • HOF Member
I dont think a UPS would be much help if power is out for hours though' date=' I would look in investing in a portable power generator (petrol run) at the prices they go for these days (few hundred) it is worth it.[/quote']

The battery system with an inverter should run my pumps for 8-10 hours . We have camped with no other power than the batteries for over a week using the inverter to supply lighting and run our hard drive and TV so we had something to watch at night. The two batteries work extremely well.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

All depends on the size, & number, of batteries in the system. One of my mates power went out for over twelve hours & he was fine. :encouragement:

Also, with solar the batteries start charging as soon as it's daytime again. :victorious:

Link to comment
Share on other sites

The battery system with an inverter should run my pumps for 8-10 hours . We have camped with no other power than the batteries for over a week using the inverter to supply lighting and run our hard drive and TV so we had something to watch at night. The two batteries work extremely well.
.

Hi Ineke' date=' glad to hear all gone well, as they say, it don't rain it pours, from 40 degree to power lost. Didn't relies about canisters filters, thanks. Can I ask what size are your 2 batteries are & type of inverter you have.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • HOF Member

The batteries are 100 amp hours each and inverter is a 2000 watt pure sine wave . When we aren't using them after our travelling we use a smart charger on them. It automatically charges them as the charge drops so they never get flat and never get over charged. We got them because of bush camping with no power and the 4WD also has an extra battery system so we can have lights and a fridge if we don't take the caravan. We have travelled in many outback deserts with just the car and a tent it's been great. Now I have the added benefit of a reserve power for my tanks pumps- the system probably won't run my heaters but the water will cool slowly so that's not so important

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Create an account or sign in to comment

You need to be a member in order to leave a comment

Create an account

Sign up for a new account in our community. It's easy!

Register a new account

Sign in

Already have an account? Sign in here.

Sign In Now
  • Join Our Community!

    Register today, ask questions and share your shrimp and fish tank experiences with us!

  • Must Read SKF Articles

  • Posts

    • ngoomie
      Alright, I've done a bit more research on gentian violet's cancer-causing potential but I haven't yet done research on malachite green's to compare. But from reading the California propositon 65 document about GV (North Americans incl. some Canadians will recognize this as the law that causes some products they buy to be labelled with "known to the state of California to cause cancer", including the exact product I bought) it seems that the risk of cancer is related to internal use, either injection or ingestion. Speaking of ingestion, I think GV bans mainly relate to its use in treating fish/shrimp/etc. which are intended for human consumption, because of the above. And in countries where GV isn't banned for this purpose, it does seem to get used on various species of shrimp without causing any issue for the shrimp themselves (at least enough so for shrimp farming purposes). See the following: In February, the FDA Began Rejecting Imported Shrimp for Gentian Violet and Chloramphenicol (2022 article by Southern Shrimp Alliance) FDA Starts New Calendar Year by Refusing Antibiotic-Contaminated Shrimp from Three BAP-Certified Indian Processors and Adding a BAP-Certified Vietnamese Processor to Import Alert (2024 article by Southern Shrimp Alliance) Southern Shrimp Alliance and some other organizations have tons of other articles in this vein, but I'd be here for a while and would end up writing an absolutely massive post if I were to link every instance I found of articles mentioning shrimp shipments with gentian violet and/or leucogentian violet registering as contaminants. That being said, I know shrimp farmed for consumption and dwarf shrimp are often somewhat distantly related (in fact, the one time a shrimp's species name is listed that I can see, it's the prawn sp. Macrobrachium rosenbergii, who at best occupies the same infraorder as Neocaridina davidi but nothing nearer), but this at least gives a slightly better way of guessing whether it will be safe for aquarium dwarf shrimp or not than my bladder snail anecdote from the OP.
    • sdlTBfanUK
      I would hazard a guess that perhaps those eggs were unfertilized and thereby unviable? Did the eggs change colour, usually yellow to grey as the yolks used up, or any eyes in the eggs. Is your water ok, using RO remineralised and the parameters in range, as I have heard others say that if the water isn't good it can 'force' a molt? How is it going overall, do you have a good size colony in the tank, you may have reached 'maximum occupancy' as a tank can only support so many occupants.
    • beanbag
      Hello folks,  The current problem I am having is that my Taiwan bee shrimp are molting before all their eggs have hatched.  Often the shrimp keep the eggs for 40+ days.  During that time, they lose about half or so, either due to dropping or duds or whatever.  Shortly before molting they look to have about a dozen left, and then they molt with about half a dozen eggs still on the shell.  Then the other shirmp will come and eat the shell.  These last few times, I have been getting around 0-3 surviving babies per batch.  I figure I can make the eggs hatch faster by raising the water temperature more (currently around 68F, which is already a few degrees higher than I used to keep it) or make the shrimp grow slower by feeding them less (protein).  Currently I feed Shrimp King complete every other day, and also a small dab of Shrimp Fit alternating days.  Maybe I can start alternating with more vegetable food like mulberry?  or just decrease the amount of food?
    • ngoomie
      Yeah, cancer risk was a thing I'd seen mentioned a lot when looking into gentian violet briefly. I kinda just figured it might only be as bad as the cancer risk of malachite green as well, but maybe I should look into it more. I've been doing a pretty good job of not getting it on my skin and also avoiding dunking my unprotected hands into the tank water while treating my fish at least, though. Maybe I'll just not use it once I'm done this course of medication anyways, because I know a store I can sometimes get to that's pretty distant carries both malachite green and methylene blue, and in pretty large quantities.
    • jayc
      Can't help you with Gentian Violet, sorry. It is banned in Australia violet for potential toxicity, and even possible cancer risks. I thought it was banned in Canada as well. At least, you now know why there isn't much info on gentian violet medication and it's use. But keep an eye on the snails after a week. If it affects the snails, it might not kill them immediately. So keep checking for up to a week. Much safer options out there. No point risking your own life over unsafe products.
×
×
  • Create New...