Power outage and fish

[succinctfish]

I know this has been discussed before, but as I don't know why the power went out here, or  whether the problem has been remedied completely, I thought I'd quickly throw out this question again.
If the power goes out, how long before the filters are in peril as a biological system? 
Thankfully, the power was only out for 15 minutes or so, seems like forever when you're trying to remember where the flashlight is , and my tank is barely stocked at the moment, since it's new and the only inhabitants at the moment are 3 pineapple swordtails.
It's made me think that I am completely unprepared for a power outage, mind you, I haven't even bought a fish net for here yet.  Unlike my cats who can just cuddle up to me for warmth if the power stays out, our little fishies friends are completely dependant upon hydro for heat, filtration, lighting.  Scary thought.
So, what do you do if the power stays out?
Plan of action, that's what I need--would I wrap the tank in a blanket to keep the warmth in?  Do I manually aerate, or agitate the water surface? What about a time frame--you know, how long before things begin to break down and the fish are at risk?  I want to print off the responses and keep as my emergency list (since I clearly cannot expect to access OVAS).

[Nerine]

    http://ovas.ca/index.php?topic=12402.0

Emergency Power Out Procedures
« on: December 01, 2006, 11:14:15 AM »

There is a lot of useful information there

[BigDaddy]

To answer that question.. I will simply go with my real world experience as "theory" has it in as little as an hour to who knows how many days...

The switches in my bedroom are hooked up such that almost every "top" plug on a two plug wall jack is connected to one switch.  The other exclusively controls an overhead light.  Now, I only found this out through the following experience.

I had a nice two week gap between moving out of my old place and into this one.. so my 75 gallon was setup in one day and my existing livestock was moved in and remained fully stocked and fully cycled.  The 75 was purchased specifically for this place, so I only had enough plants from a single 25 I had.. so plants definitely had a minimal impact on nitrogen consumption.  I did, however, acquire a whole bunch of new fish to "fill up" the somewhat vacant looking 75.

Anyway.. before I turn into an eheim-stealing poem aficionado, I'll get to the gist of my post.

One day shortly after we moved in... the FFL and I headed off to our daily jobs as per usual.  Unbeknownst to me, my wife had turned off BOTH switches in the master bedroom.  My 2213 canister filter remained offline for approximately 10 hours.  After the required freak out and the immediate switch to a single power bar on the "bottom" plug... I started my tests.

0 ammonia, 0 nitrite, and trace levels of nitrate.  They never strayed after several days of testing. 

So, my real world answer... under moderately stocked conditions 1/2 day is a safe bet.  Your results may vary

[BigMomma]

One day shortly after we moved in... the FFL and I headed off to our daily jobs as per usual.  Unbeknownst to me, my wife had turned off BOTH switches in the master bedroom.  My 2213 canister filter remained offline for approximately 10 hours.  After the required freak out and the immediate switch to a single power bar on the "bottom" plug... I started my tests.

0 ammonia, 0 nitrite, and trace levels of nitrate.  They never strayed after several days of testing. 

So, my real world answer... under moderately stocked conditions 1/2 day is a safe bet.  Your results may vary

I did it in the name of Science!  (does sounds like a good idea for a Mythbusters show)

[Nerine]

I did it in the name of Science!  (does sounds like a good idea for a Mythbusters show)

I love your response

it does sound like a good mythbusters show! should pitch it to them

[babblefish1960]

Anyway.. before I turn into an eheim-stealing poem aficionado, I'll get to the gist of my post.

Someone has their foot on fire still I see, I still laugh pretty hard, but quite frankly, you'll never babble as well as I do in my sleep, (wait...I don't sleep, scratch that then).

Imagine accusing the poor FFL of causing the experiment when the fault lay entirely upon your very high up shoulders for hooking a filter to a light switch rather than the obligatory power tap as you were forced to add.


This is a very good question succinctfish, just how long can you safely forget to plug that biological canister back in, and start it up again without poisoning everything with dangerously decayed bacteria?

[kennyman]

With a sealed canister I imagine that, as the bacteria scour out the remaining O2, anaerobic colonies will develop. And the byproducts from those guys could be harmfull to fish if the filter was suddenly turned on. In a filter open to the air I doubt that could happen to the same degree. But as for how long it takes for colonised filter media to starve and die, well I imagine that you have some time. I could see being without power for a few days as a bad thing. Some of us must have had to deal with a mini cycle during the icestorm? I was out for 7 days so my tank was toast, but how abut in the city? What was it like getting tanks back up and running?

[normc]

I have canister filters and I had a power failure of 9 hours with out problems.

[charlie]

My real world experience , as recently as last weekend. On Saturday before retiring to bed, i was advancing the time on all my digital timers & inadvertently knocked the plug for my eheim  cannister out of the power bar, a full 24 + hrs. later i discovered my clumsy mishap & re plugged the filter back in with no adverse effect.
Regards

[babblefish1960]

Oh Charlie you big silly, that was a good bit of reference though, good to know next time I forget.

[babblefish1960]

This is a very good question regarding the life and times of the life cycle of aerobic and nitrifying bacteria in the aquarium filter system.  There are always a plethora of variables that have differing effects on closed and open systems, however, it remains that there must be a reasonable shelf life for these little critters before they turn from a gizmo to a gremlin.

[babblefish1960]

And this would help determine the viable age of nitrifying bacteria inside canister filters that have had their power supply interrupted how exactly?

I presume that there are some scientific models out there that correlate oxygenation of the water supply relative to the life span of the bacteria anyway, just not sure where to find them.

At which moment does the good bacteria die sufficiently to endorse the propagation and success of the anaerobic bacteria?  I guess the question really is, at what time after power failure is it no longer a good idea to plug the filter back in without cleaning out the crud in the filter?

[plecoL83]

My canister filter went off for about 12h and I had no adverse side effects (no effects whatsoever, anyway.)

[kennyman]

Tom Barr probably know how long it takes for bacteria to die. Someone try and remember to ask him if he ever decides to come for that visit to ovas chat 

24 hours is a good long time and a 12 hour to back it up!