What To Do For Your Aquarium When the Power Goes Out

This can be a scary thing for anyone, especially if you are housing some expensive fish. Of course the best case scenario is you have a generator and you can run all your equipment with that. If this isn't an option for you here is what you do.

The first thing to address will be oxygenating the water. It is a good idea to invest in a battery operated air pump and keep it in your emergency kit with batteries and an air-stone. If you wait until the power goes out you may find they are all sold out. If your tank has an under gravel filter you can drop the air-stone into one of the filter tubes (you may have a power head attached to it). In a reef aquarium you will want it under a piece of live rock to take advantage of the beneficial bacteria living inside. If nothing else just let it hang in a corner but make sure the air hose goes at least 4 to 6 inches into the water and doesn't float back up to the surface.  For most tanks this will be enough to keep the fish safe until the power comes back on.

The second important thing is going to be controlling temperature. You will need to have a thermometer to monitor if the temperature starts to go up or down. If it starts to go above 82 degrees Fahrenheit, you can float frozen water in plastic bottles, preferably around the bubbles from your air pump. Shrimp and other invertebrates will start to die if gets too hot. More often than not the issues that cause the outage happen in the winter months, so the temperature tends to go down; this is good because most fish will tolerate temperatures as low as 68 degrees for a couple days (some fish that won't: discus and cardinal tetra). If you anticipate the outage to last longer than a couple of days, you can try to insulate the tank from the outside with foil and blankets (be sure to unplug any equipment that could be a fire hazard if the electricity were to come back on). Or if the tank is small enough you can transfer the inhabitants, and some decorations for hiding, into a clean, insulated ice chest to keep them warm; be sure to use the air stone and never close the lid all the way. Fish are more vulnerable to rapid fluctuations than prolonged time outside of the safe zone; for this reason, it is a bad idea to pour hot or cold water into the tank to change the temperature. This might cause a sudden increase then decrease in temperature, which would really stress the fish.

Lastly it is important not to put any undue stress on the system so do not feed your fish while the power is out (2 day max.). Healthy fish can go a couple days without food. If the outage lasts longer than a couple days you can start feeding them every other day, very small amounts and you will need to start testing the water for ammonia and nitrates. Do partial water changes if the test results show any ammonia or nitrates above 40ppm. If the power is going to be off for prolonged periods of time (weeks or more) you will need to invest in an under-gravel filter or a sponge filter that you can run on a battery operated air-pump. If you already have a full tank of fish you will want to seed these new filters with bacteria from an old filter, or you can purchase live bacteria at your local fish store.

Hopefully this doesn't happen to you often and if it does you're prepared and it comes back on within a few hours. Happy fish-keeping!

Do fish only grow to the size of their tank?

This is a myth.

Fish will continue to grow to whatever their adult size is or die trying. This myth was possibly started by hobbyists with goldfish which are commonly kept in bowls for years. 



What most people don’t realize is goldfish can live up to 30 years. Living in small poorly filtered tanks or bowls will cause stunting, usually from prolonged ammonia exposure. If the stunting doesn’t kill them the waste build up will. At some point the ammonia or nitrates will reach lethal levels quicker than you can clean the water. 

Here are some common fish that get big and a recommended tank size for them.

Fish Name	Average Adult size	Recommended tank size
Red Tail Cat	5 ft.	1,000 Gallons
Iridescent Shark	4 ft.	1,000 Gal.
Plecostomus, Regular	3 ft.	120 Gal.
Gourami’s (Not Dwarfs)	6+ inches	55Gal.
Cichlids, south American	12 inches	55Gal.
Gold fish	16 inches	40 Gal. Each
Goldfish, fancy (round)	3 inch diameter (tennis ball)	20 Gal. Each

Top 10 aquarium questions: 3. What type of filter do I need?

What type of filter do I need?

This depends on the type of system you want to have. Decide whether you want fresh or salt, and then decide whether you want plants or fish only. 

There are three types of filtration to consider: 

Biological, as we discussed in detail earlier is where biological organisms break immediate wastes into less toxic wastes. Identify this component of your filter because you will never want to wash it. If it gets clogged rinse in a cup of tank water, but never wash clean or rinse with tap or you will lose all those beneficial bacteria you waited so patiently to grow during your cycle. This part will usually be plastic balls, or ceramic beads, or rock in a salt system.

Chemical, most commonly carbon, uses a chemical to absorb toxins out of the water. Chemical filtration can also absorb medication out of the water which is why you remove it when treating a tank.

Mechanical, usually a foam pad, physically catches debris out of the water. This you will wash regularly but never need to replace if you buy the aqua clear filters, because their foam pad is tough. Some filters combine the carbon with the pad and don't give you a choice but to replace both, lame. 

For fresh water fish only there are many pre-boxed filters you can use. My personal favorite are Aqua Clear filters because they have all three types of filtration, and the replacement filters are easy to find or make at home. Unlike some other filters where you have to find their brand or it won't fit into the filter. 

For fresh water planted you will want a filter that doesn't disturb the surface of the water. plants need light for photosynthesis, and ripples in the water deflect light. Good filters for this purpose are canister filters, my favorite being the Fluval G series. Which is digital and gives you read outs of temp, flow rate, and many other cool options. 

For salt water in general we have the unique ability to use live rock as biological filtration. You'll need rock and a pump to move water around the tank and through the rock. Many people stopped using carbon in salt tanks back when it leeched phosphates into their tanks, which kills corals, but now you can get reef carbon for a slightly higher price which does not leech phosphates. There are other types of chemical filtration for saltwater tanks, most of which are specific to reefs. These include bio-plastics, like the ones two little fishes makes, Granular ferric oxide or GFOs, and a few random others. These are most commonly used in Reefs so I will discuss them further in the reef section below. 

For salt water fish only, you can run them on live rock alone, however I prefer some sort of mechanical filtration, at least in the beginning to help clarify the water. Any of the filters mentioned thus far will work for this, I personally have used a Fluval and an Aqua Clear on two separate tanks and liked them both. Maintenance for a fish only is similar to a fresh water fish only, the only additional work being monitoring salt content of the water. Which is easy with a hydrometer or refractometer. Also most stores sell pre mixed salt water now, so you don't have to hassle with mixing it at home. If you do decide to mix at home it's a good idea to do this the night before so as not to burn your fish with undissolved salt. 

For saltwater reef, which just means saltwater with plants and or corals of any kind.You will need all the same equipment from fish only plus a protein skimmer. The protein skimmer mimics the wave action of the ocean by producing many small bubbles and catching the protein build up, aka the "skimate", and removing it from the tank. This serves two purposes. One it removes excess nitrogen from the tank which improves water quality, and Two this also improves clarity. Both of these are important for corals. Although fish can tolerate nitrate levels up to 40 ppm with no problems at all, corals need the nitrates to be below 10 ppm and 0 ppm is best. You will also need a phosphate reactor to help keep your phosphates at zero. The reactor is sold empty and you can choose to purchase GFO or bio-plastics. The difference being that GFO targets phosphates specifically, and bio-plastics act as a food source for bacteria that breaks down both nitrates and phosphates. I use the bioplastics but if you ever find yourself with high phosphates and need them down quick GFOs are your best bet.

Top 10 Aquarium Questions: What is Cycling a Tank?

What is Cycling a Tank?

When you put water in a tank it is clean, minus whatever may have been in your tap water. A fish tank is like a little ecosystem and it needs a set of beneficial microbes that have many functions, so too clean is not a good thing. One important function of these microbes is to metabolize fish waste (ammonia) into nitrites, and then further metabolize nitrites into nitrates.

Ammonia is highly toxic and easy to spot in your system. If you have ever cleaned with ammonia, you'll know it becomes a white cloud in water. This is the main reason a tank will fog up on you. Unfortunately, if the tank does fog due to ammonia it means it is likely at lethal levels (as little as 2ppm), so we'll try to avoid this by taking it slow and giving the bacteria time to grow, which will prevent ammonia from building  in your tank.

Nitrites are also pretty toxic (as little as 1mg/L), but a second set of bacteria will start to grow as soon as nitrites show up and just like ammonia, nitrites don't have to get to toxic levels if only a couple fish are in the tank during the cycle.

I can't stress enough how easy this process will be if you just don't overload the tank.

The final waste product, and the least toxic, is nitrates (safe up to 40ppm). Right now the only way to remove nitrates is by doing partial water changes on your tank monthly: between 40% and 25% depending on fish load.

What we call the cycle is the process of growing enough bacteria in a tank to break down all toxic wastes into less-toxic nitrates. During this time there will be a spike in ammonia followed by a spike in nitrates until the bacteria reaches a population that breaks it down as soon as its produced.

There is a catch though, the bacteria needs ammonia to grow.

Therefore, letting a tank sit with water and no fish will not cycle it. Some people have added pure ammonia to the tank, and this may work, but I don't recommend it. I prefer a natural approach, and I have not lost a fish in a cycle ever. By being patient and not adding too many fish, or adding fish too soon, I'm confident you won't either.

As long as you take it slow and don't overload the tank.

In very rare cases I have helped people with tanks who didn't grow bacteria, even after 2 to 3 weeks. I suspect this was from using very pure water and having a very clean tank and filter. You can purchase bacteria to jump start the cycle, but despite the claims by the manufacturer it would still be a good idea to give it a couple weeks before filling the tank to full capacity with fish. I have also used old filters from an established tank to "seed" my new filter. The only downside to this is you can't be sure which bacterial strains you're introducing. When you purchase bacteria, you can be certain you are introducing all the appropriate strains for optimal filtration.

This whole process we have been discussing is referred to as biological filtration. That's because biological organisms are working to help "filter" out the toxic wastes into less-toxic wastes. Other types of filtration you may encounter are mechanical and chemical, but that will be discussed in another post.