Hurricane Katrina, battery powered air pumps save the day!

[ChileRelleno]

Hurricane Ivan...
No battery powered air pumps equaled dead Oscar and other fish.
Hurricane Katrina...
Multiple battery powered air pumps equals healthy fish !

Our power was out for four days in the aftermath of Katrina (We live in Mobile,AL), we had bought Penn Plax 'Silent Air-B10/B11 battery powered air pumps for the next time we lost power and they worked beautifully!
Never had to change the batteries in them, they ran on the same batteries for four days without a noticeable loss of output.
The B10 model you have to switch on manually but the B11 plugs into the wall and automatically comes on when there is a loss of power, other than that they are basically the same unit...
Very nice,great products!
We're gonna buy B11's to replace the B10's and keep'em on standby 24/7.
Two units, a B10 and a B11 adequately maintained circulation and surface agitation in our Oscar's 75 gal tank. No sign of lack oxygen or other stress even with the water temps hitting 85'f.
A single B10 kept a 10gal practically boiling with circulation.

We just got power-n-cable back, filters-n-ect are running again.
We prepped for the hurricane with 30%+ pwc's and GV's, stopped feeding and setup the B10/B11's.
I just did water test tonight...
Tank NH3 NO2 NO3 PH GH KH
75......0.....0....30......7....4....2
10......0.....0....20......7....4....4
10......0.....0....10......7....4....4
Great parameters after four days of nil filtration.

My family is fine, our house could be better but suffered no structural or flood damage so everything else is just a matter of time, money and hardwork.

 

[PsiPro]

Glad to hear the good news! I bought a battery operated pump to transport my fish to school

 

[megladonsharky]

glad to hear all in you household are safe and sound

 

[Bubble_B0y]

that reminds me.

what do u do in a blackout when there is no electricity ??

most filters cannot be run on battery.

 

[PsiPro]

Generally your fish will be ok, if its gonna be a long time, the best you can do is disrupt the water... break the water tension to get some air. A battery operated air pump isn't that expensive.

 

[coolchinchilla]

As far as the filters, you can do a bunch of water changes to keep the wastes down in the tank if it is a prolonged period of time.

 

[ChileRelleno]

that reminds me.

what do u do in a blackout when there is no electricity ??

most filters cannot be run on battery.

You don't run a filter when the power is out, the battery powered air pumps just provide circulation and water surface agitation to promote the exchange of gases between the water and atmosphere.
So if you know you have a chance of losing power for longer than a hour you should...
(1) Do a 30%+ PWC -n- GV.
(2) Remove, rinse and then put your filter media in the tank itself.
This keeps your bio cultures alive and the tank cycled.
(3) Stop all feeding until the power comes back on or feed'em lightly once a week. This reduces waste output.
(4)Setup battery powered air pumps. Circulation and surface agitation.
(5)Observe fish for signs of stress and do small PWC's if possible.
(6)Unplug all filters, heaters and ect until the power comes back on, this can help avoid problems with equipment when the power does return.

We had a generator and could possibly have run filters full time but thought that the TV, refrigerator/freezer and intermittent A/C (very small window unit in a small room) was of more importance.