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Casualties from Laura (1 Viewer)

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Stickboy97

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Well I thought I dodged a bullet when Laura missed us, guess not. Laura tore up the transmission lines for Entergy (as many of you know), which evidently feed a lot of East TX. So they took our power down yesterday, unannounced to do the repair work. I scrambled & got a generator going but left work at 5:00pm & shut it down. I knew I would either be coming back later to run it some more or the power would eventually come up. Power came back on last night around 9pm (thanks Apex) so I figured everything was good.... guess not. The return pump on my Biocube didn't come back on & my mp10 is mounted way low so it barely causes the surface to break. Guess it didn't generate enough oxygen last night & I lost a Frostbite clown, a small yellow tang & some peppermint shrimp. Shocked that all the oxygen was depleted in 12 hours.

How do they manage to ship fish without killing them?

Haven't totally assessed the loss of coral yet, I know for sure 1 head on a torch is gone, we'll have to see about the rest.

Did learn another thing though.... battery back-ups suck! I have 3 and all three were drained in 20 minutes or less and all I have running on them is 1 return pump per tank. Money wasted if you ask me.
 

frankc

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Sorry to hear about your losses. That is a bit surprising how quickly they died. When Ike happened, I did not start losing fish until about 24 hours had passed.
 
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Stickboy97

Stickboy97

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Yeah, I'm shocked. I can only assume that due to the # of coral in the tank (it is full of xenia, zoas, torches, frogspawn, mushrooms & sps) that they used up all the oxygen. I only had 2 fish in there, numerous crabs & snails which survived & several peppermint shrimp.
 

ITreefer

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Damn, very sorry to hear that.
Very surprised to hear that battery back-ups were near-useless. I was considering getting some for my DC pumps, but not anymore.
 

slojim

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I was thinking about this myself. I did a chemiclean treatment, so I ended up doing a 25% water change over the weekend before. While I was at it, I agitated my tank and blew out my rocks with a powerhead and turkey baster. As always, a lot came out - and I bet that was a good thing to do in advance of a storm. I also fed lightly from then until the storm passed.
A fish ships in a bag that starts clean - your tank may have lots of rock packed with detritus. The biological processes continue when the power is out until they create toxic conditions.
Anyway - that's my guess - I think if we get another storm projection, I'll blow out the rocks again.
 
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Stickboy97

Stickboy97

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@eraser2001 thx. The other tanks all did fine, just the one had issues. When I pulled the yellow out rigor hadn't even set in, I must have missed him by an hour or less. Very sad!
 

RR-MAN

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I learned my lesson in hurricane IKE- I had 2 MP40s and daisy chained 3 ecotech battery backups but my fish suffocated/died because the pumps were too low in the tank. I lost some big fish.

You want to make sure pumps are moved closer to the surface so there is some water agitation.

I did email ecotech but as usual nothing came out of it.
 

steveb

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How do they manage to ship fish without killing them?

sorry for your loss

2 things -

1) when they ship they pack with O2 + the bag being jostled around helps with gas exchange and there are few nitrifying bacteria.

2) your tank has live rock and maybe sand. Part of the Nitrifying bacteria in your rock, in the sand, on any surface really... consume oxygen to process ammonia.
 

steveb

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I learned my lesson in hurricane IKE- I had 2 MP40s and daisy chained 3 ecotech battery backups but my fish suffocated/died because the pumps were too low in the tank. I lost some big fish.

You want to make sure pumps are moved closer to the surface so there is some water agitation.

I did email ecotech but as usual nothing came out of it.

One of the reasons I run gyre pumps.
 

kris4647

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Keep in mind Ecotech batteries use their own system of throttling down the pumps speed to control their run time. It’s a variable you can control in EcoSmart live. There’s a good BRS video out there about battery back ups and this very thing.


So sorry that happened to you, I lost a 450g like that.

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Rkcreacy

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I used a 750w power inverter with a deep cycle batter from my boat. I ran the return pump, power head, ato and 2 dosers with a small 12” light for 3 hrs with no problem.
 

paraletho

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I lost all SPS lots of colonies. Being 1/4 mile off the beach and in the bullseye of a 150 mph storm I wasn’t going to leave my generator. Fish were dead when I got back from Dallas on Friday. House was 96 inside and water to 94. I saved some LPS ANd zoas and palys. School rented a portable 18 wheeler generator before leaving but forgot to tell me so there was no pre storm transfer. That tank did fine. Lost my avocado tree and some shingles. Had a couple gusts to 89 mph. On sixth day no power. Generator and window unit in BRoom. Cooking on fire pit. Did save freezers of fish and meat never thawed.
 

frankc

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I lost all SPS lots of colonies. Being 1/4 mile off the beach and in the bullseye of a 150 mph storm I wasn’t going to leave my generator. Fish were dead when I got back from Dallas on Friday. House was 96 inside and water to 94. I saved some LPS ANd zoas and palys. School rented a portable 18 wheeler generator before leaving but forgot to tell me so there was no pre storm transfer. That tank did fine. Lost my avocado tree and some shingles. Had a couple gusts to 89 mph. On sixth day no power. Generator and window unit in BRoom. Cooking on fire pit. Did save freezers of fish and meat never thawed.

Sorry to hear that, but glad you were able to save some corals and your house is still mostly intact.
 

webster1234

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Wow, it could have been a lot worse. It's a bummer that you lost a lot of livestock but our community is also very giving. I'm sure you can be back up and running with a tank full of fish and corals in no time if you wish.
 

Ross tha Reefer

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Sheesh...any kind of insurance to help with the financial loss?


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