How long can a reef tank last w/o power?

[ColaAddict]

Flow is the most important. I manually mixed mine every hour to creat flow swhen I lost power overnight and everything survived

 

[Ottobeme]

I forgot to turn filter back on after cleaning. Woke up next morning to a dead tank.... lost probably $600+.

 

[Waynerock]

I would agitate the water but I'm not home:sad:..I just hope everything is fine..keep you guys posted later tonight.

Grab you a couple of these for 7.00 at Wally World. 2 D’s and it lasts 40 hours. They are to keep fish alive in bait buckets. You could hook a wood stone to it and get even better oxygenation with super fine bubbles.

 

[Jenuvio]

Any advice?

Return pump is KIA...
How long until my coral and fish start to suffer?
2 Powerheads will continue to circulate water and create agitation...

 

[Slawman]

I'm just wondering how long will a reef tank be alright without power? No water movement, lights etc....thanks!

There is no "right" answer to this one. The key issues relate to temperature and oxygen saturation. If your tank is in a cold place and it is small, you will have very little time before the temperature will drop to a level where inhabitants will start to suffer and die, the larger your tank and the closer to 26 degrees your ambient temperature is the more time you will have.

With oxygen saturation, this will depend on temperature but also the bioload in your system consuming the oxygen. Some tanks with a large water/air contact surface can go for weeks with no real issues, other systems with heavy bioload will not do as well.

You will also find that this is a sliding scale, where bacteria, creatures and animals will be impacted differently over time. This is why sometime after a power loss for a day or so, nothing dies but you get a cyano outbreak or something similar, the balance of your biome has been impacted.

I propose that temperature, Oxygen and a distant third to light in that order are your key concerns and the length of time is entirely dependent on your particular situation.

 

[Keybilly]

We live in the Florida Keys where we frequently lose power since it is literally one line coming in from Miami it doesn’t take much. If we lose it for more than a day my husband hooks up a portable generator but for when I’m just losing it for a few hours I have these super handy portable bubblers that you can get at any bait and tackle shop... they take D batteries and are literally a life saver. I just pop like four oxygen lines in my tank and the fish are good to go. I bet amazon has them if you don’t live near a bait and tackle shop. They’re cheap... like $12-ish each.

 

[Jenuvio]

appreciate the help!

 

[bigdrew]

A tornado touched down 45 minutes from my house 2 nights ago...lost power for almost 24 hours. My 64 gallon reef with 6 fish, C.U.C., and 2 emerald crabs lasted 12 hours of the 24 with no problems. It took me a while to get my generator working...

 

[xxkenny90xx]

This threads 10yrs old guys.... I hope he finds the wrasse soon

 

[bigdrew]

This threads 10yrs old guys.... I hope he finds the wrasse soon

Lol

 

[Slawman]

Lol

10 years without power.....that's a hardcore reefer ;Woot

 

[Jenuvio]

10 years without power.....that's a hardcore reefer ;Woot

LOoOL

 

[LeahSaltLife]

(almost three years later) all that money into electric and you could be buying a wind powered generator!

Lucky you, thats my bill on a regular month! We live on all electric! No gas. My power is out right now so I came to check out all these comments. Glad to know! We have a generator but man is it nasty out right now lol. Its in the shed where all the rain lightning wind and thunder is. Awesome! Might just wait it out. Last time the power came back on RIGHT when we got the generator all set up to everything lol

 

[Shnolby]

I left my tank off overnight one time when feeding... and I run off one power strip so the heater was out also. I've actually done this 3 times now and only lost 1 fish. Oh yeah, I'm a moron too btw

I just did this and was looking to see if I should do anything. Temp only dropped to 76 over the 12 hours as it’s a big tank. Glad to see it’ll be alright

 

[PatW]

I have gone through a number of hurricanes and lost power for about 5 days at the longest stretch. I have a 300 gallon SPS dominant with a fairly light fish load. I use batteries to power an air pump and run air stones in the tank. The lack of power has not been an issue. I don’t feed and without lights, the corals seem to do dormant so I don’t dose 2 part Like normal.