Power loss recovery scenario

[ATLreefer]

Hello,

I recently lost power for 4 days, and my tank crashed, as the water movement stopped, and the temp got down to 42 degrees. I am relatively new to the hobby, and my tank admittedly had some minor algae issues due to lack of water changes, filter sock cleaning, etc, but fish, lps, and sps corals have always been healthy, as my water chemistry has always been acceptable. The tank is a 25 gallon, and initial tests showed around 2ppm ammonia, with nitrate at an acceptable level.

I cleared all of the dead livestock and corals, but I wasn’t able to find one fish. I did a 25% water change, and the plan is to bring ammonia down through large changes over the next few days. I also vacuumed the sand bed, and will get a CUC in there soon. I have been reading some threads about rip cleaning, cleaning/replacing sand beds, etc. I have also seen where people cook their rock in a dark container to get rid of the algae.

My question is this : if I run the tank without lights for a week or so to lessen the algae on the rocks, and get the water chemistry in line, should I be ok to start restocking with fish and corals? In a perfect world, I would thoroughly rip clean, etc, but I just don’t feel like I realistically have the time for that with work and two small kids, etc.

Thanks for any insight you can give!

 

[Ron Reefman]

It's possible, but a total rebuild is 100% sure thing. You may end up doing that anyway if the start up you want to do, fails.

Consider a couple of battery powered bubblers to keep water moving during a power outage.

We lost power for 10 days during and after Hurricane Charlie and my 120g tank survived 100%.

 

[Troylee]

Hello,

I recently lost power for 4 days, and my tank crashed, as the water movement stopped, and the temp got down to 42 degrees. I am relatively new to the hobby, and my tank admittedly had some minor algae issues due to lack of water changes, filter sock cleaning, etc, but fish, lps, and sps corals have always been healthy, as my water chemistry has always been acceptable. The tank is a 25 gallon, and initial tests showed around 2ppm ammonia, with nitrate at an acceptable level.

I cleared all of the dead livestock and corals, but I wasn’t able to find one fish. I did a 25% water change, and the plan is to bring ammonia down through large changes over the next few days. I also vacuumed the sand bed, and will get a CUC in there soon. I have been reading some threads about rip cleaning, cleaning/replacing sand beds, etc. I have also seen where people cook their rock in a dark container to get rid of the algae.

My question is this : if I run the tank without lights for a week or so to lessen the algae on the rocks, and get the water chemistry in line, should I be ok to start restocking with fish and corals? In a perfect world, I would thoroughly rip clean, etc, but I just don’t feel like I realistically have the time for that with work and two small kids, etc.

Thanks for any insight you can give!

You should be fine as long as you don’t clean the rock and just get it back up to temp and let the rock catch up with bacteria.