Help! Power Outage and corals not happy

[Maho.B]

Hello to all. I need advice, Saturday night a storm knocked our power out for 10 hours. The temp went from 78 down to 73 and with no power there was no current at all, everything sat in silence. Once the power came back on the heater brought the temp back up to 78 and everything "seemed" fine right away. Well, that was a little over 2 days ago and many of the corals are now showing the stress. All of the Acropora and some Montipora colors are fading, almost to the bleaching point. The Stylophora, Pavona, Lepto and are all showing less than usual PE and the color is slightly off. LPS like Favia, Cyphastrea, Acans and Goni's are also showing less PE as usual.

Coming home to see the Acro's fading I did a full water test, here they are as of right now:

Alkalinity: 8.9
Phosphate: 0.05
Nitrate: 4.2
Calcium: 425
Magnesium: 1330
Salinity: 35
Temp: 78

These results are basically what I keep it at except for the Alkalinity, I keep that at 7.9 to 8.0 so I don't know why it jumped up to 8.9 since the power outage. With the corals stressed maybe they stopped using up Alkalinity at the pace they were prior to the power outage? I will say, prior to this, the corals in the tank had never looked better, great color, tons of growth and awesome PE on everything.

Now for my question. Do I intervene in any way or just leave the system as is keeping it as stable as possible? I am SO hopefull the stress they went through is short term and they color back up to normal. It's terrible to see such a healthy group of corals so unhappy after one power outage! A generator will be in my near future. Any advise is appreciated. Thanks.

 

[Subsea]

I would not think that a temperature drop of 5 degrees would harm anything. I would expect oxygen depletion to have killed certain bacteria. I suggest you test for ammonia.

Check out this battery operated air pump that comes on when power goes off

Amazon product ASIN B004PBIKHU

 

[Maho.B]

I would not think that a temperature drop of 5 degrees would harm anything. I would expect oxygen depletion to have killed certain bacteria. I suggest you test for ammonia.

Check out this battery operated air pump that comes on when power goes off

Amazon product ASIN B004PBIKHU

Ammonia, never thought of that! I don't have an Ammonia test kit but can get one tomorrow. The system holds 110 gallons so I wasn't sure if the Oxygen in that volume would be depleted in that time frame. Thanks.

 

[Catawba_Valley_Reef]

Sorry to hear about this. Did you lose any fish?

Did the water look cloudy at all when power came back on?

At this point I would try to keep things stable.

 

[Maho.B]

No fish lost, I only have 7 fish, all rather small too, they all seem fine. Water looks good. I took my Alkalinity dosing pump offline tonight for a bit since it's climbing higher than I have been keeping it. Other than that I'll keep everything stable and see what happens. With the bleaching, not sure if I should lower the lighting at all?

 

[Subsea]

Ammonia, never thought of that! I don't have an Ammonia test kit but can get one tomorrow. The system holds 110 gallons so I wasn't sure if the Oxygen in that volume would be depleted in that time frame. Thanks.

Depends on your biofiltration & fish load as to system BOD (Biological Oxygen Demand).

Once, while away from home, a 4 hour power outage occurred around midnight. When neighbor checked on 150G display later that morning, every fish was dead. He promptly netted all fish, corals were displaying as if nothing bad had happened. I returned home 48 hours later and dealt with algae bloom.

 

[Maho.B]

Yikes! Lost all your fish, that's terrible.

 

[Subsea]

Yikes! Lost all your fish, that's terrible.

After 55 years in the hobby, things happen. When I lived in South Louisiana, I installed an 14KW automated generator after that event.

I now design my systems with 36 hours of battery backup for life support systems like circulating pumps & air pumps, but not lights & heat.
Here in Texas, we don’t much need heaters for our systems.

 

[aquaman67]

I don’t know your situation but here’s how I mitigated power outages for my tank.

I have a 50 gallon tank. Mostly toadstools and mushrooms.

I have a 30” AI Blade Grow for light

4 AI Nero 3 power heads.

Two 100 watt heaters on an Innovative Marine Helios controller.

A Remora hang on skimmer with a Sicce 1.0 pump

All this is plugged into a power strip.

The power strip is plugged into an EcoFlow Delta 2. The EcoFlow Delta 2 is one of those “Solar Generators”. It’s basically a big battery that can be recharged with solar panels.

I don’t use solar panels I just keep the Delta 2 plugged in. It has a UPS (uninterruptible power supply) mode where it will pass through power and keep the batteries charged until needed.

Having said all that to say this.

This battery will run my tank for about 14 hours. If I turn off the light and 2 power heads it will run longer. It also depends on the ambient room temperature as the colder the room the more the heaters cycle on and the faster the battery drains.

I have an inverter generator from Harbor Freight to charge the battery. I use the battery at night. Even though the generator is quite the battery is silent. I got it on Amazon for $450.

I know this doesn’t fix your current situation. I’m just giving you and anyone else who finds this something to think about.

 

[W31Olds]

Subsea, loosing fish and coral after only 4 hours without power is troubling. Just curious, I have generators, but no instantaneous backup and it sounds like as I add Bioload, the window without power does not follow a linear path. The tank you referenced must have had a very high Bioload. Sounds like I should add Battery Backup as I lose power often and my providers restoration estimates are rarely met.

 

[Subsea]

Subsea, loosing fish and coral after only 4 hours without power is troubling. Just curious, I have generators, but no instantaneous backup and it sounds like as I add Bioload, the window without power does not follow a linear path. The tank you referenced must have had a very high Bioload. Sounds like I should add Battery Backup as I lose power often and my providers restoration estimates are rarely met.

Bioload was large. Not that many fish in 150G display, however display included 6” DSB, which consumes oxygen 24/7. The larger consumer of oxygen was remote system in garage which included two 55G macroalgae growout tanks as well as two 8’ by 4’ coral frag tanks that were 1’ deep.

 

[W31Olds]

I see, that's good info to know. I can see where the lack of circulation would cause that tank to crash in a short period. My sand bed is probably 1.5" max. Still want to investigate a Battery Backup. My Generator doesn't start itself.

 

[Subsea]

I see, that's good info to know. I can see where the lack of circulation would cause that tank to crash in a short period. My sand bed is probably 1.5" max. Still want to investigate a Battery Backup. My Generator doesn't start itself.

I have several diy battery backup systems with a focus on life support. The simplest is a Penn Plax air pump at $25 that comes on when power goes off. It will run for 7 days on two d cell batteries.

On 75G & 120G display tanks at 25 years & 5 years mature, I use a more powerful12vdc air pump 24/7 which is supplied by 12VDC battery bank that also runs a 12vdc to 120VAC inverter for an uninterrupted power supply. Note that there are no switching devices to fail.

 

[dvgyfresh]

Oxygen is my biggest worry during power outages - maybe do some water changes ?

 

[Subsea]

I see, that's good info to know. I can see where the lack of circulation would cause that tank to crash in a short period. My sand bed is probably 1.5" max. Still want to investigate a Battery Backup. My Generator doesn't start itself.

While all fish in 150G display with 6” dsb died, none of the corals suffered in this tank. Losing all fish was a catastrophe but the tank did not crash and aside from a nutrient spike with an algae bloom tank recovered nicely.
I think nutrient spike came from decomposing organics in sandbed.

 

[BeanAnimal]

Oxygen is my biggest worry during power outages - maybe do some water changes ?

Just agitating the water will help.

At the bare minimum keep a few battery operated air pumps on hand.

If you have gas water heat or a gas stove warm water can be floated in bags.

Next step would be an inexpensive inverter that can run from your car and power a small pump or hobby specific battery operated power heads.

Then generators or large battery backups, etc.

 

[Maho.B]

I don’t know your situation but here’s how I mitigated power outages for my tank.

I have a 50 gallon tank. Mostly toadstools and mushrooms.

I have a 30” AI Blade Grow for light

4 AI Nero 3 power heads.

Two 100 watt heaters on an Innovative Marine Helios controller.

A Remora hang on skimmer with a Sicce 1.0 pump

All this is plugged into a power strip.

The power strip is plugged into an EcoFlow Delta 2. The EcoFlow Delta 2 is one of those “Solar Generators”. It’s basically a big battery that can be recharged with solar panels.

I don’t use solar panels I just keep the Delta 2 plugged in. It has a UPS (uninterruptible power supply) mode where it will pass through power and keep the batteries charged until needed.

Having said all that to say this.

This battery will run my tank for about 14 hours. If I turn off the light and 2 power heads it will run longer. It also depends on the ambient room temperature as the colder the room the more the heaters cycle on and the faster the battery drains.

I have an inverter generator from Harbor Freight to charge the battery. I use the battery at night. Even though the generator is quite the battery is silent. I got it on Amazon for $450.

I know this doesn’t fix your current situation. I’m just giving you and anyone else who finds this something to think about.

Great info, thanks!