Freshwater Aquarium - What If Your Power Fails?

Introduction

If you have a freshwater aquarium, one of the things you fear the most is a power outage. Depending on where you live, you can lose your power for hours, or like we did after a hurricane, for almost two weeks.

What Is Important

When your aquarium is operating normally one of the most important items you have is your aerator. This provides much-needed oxygen to the water so your fish can breathe.

You should also have a mechanical filter to remove large and small debris particles and it also houses some of your bacteria colony that removes toxic chemicals.

Heaters are also necessary to keep the water in your aquarium at a constant temperature.

All of this equipment, aerator, mechanical filter and heater need electrical power to run. Without this equipment your aquarium is in jeopardy and you could lose your fish.

What To Do If You Lose Power

If you do lose your electrical power here is the action you should take in the order of importance:

Aerator - The first thing you should do is get oxygen to your aquarium's water. Ahead of time you should buy a battery-operated aerator that they sell at sporting goods stores. Fishermen use these to keep their live bait alive.

You can also get a battery operated air pump at most pet stores or do an Internet search for a battery operated aerator.

These are relatively inexpensive and a must for any one with an aquarium.

Filters - Though not as important as getting your aerator operating, you should also get your filter operating. You can do this by purchasing, ahead of time, a device that converts DC power (battery) to AC power that will power your filter.

Heater - If you lose power to your heater, your aquarium's water temperature will equalize with the temperature that is in the room. If you can control the temperature in the room then you can control the temperature in your aquarium.

Your biggest concern is if the temperature in the room drops. If this happens try wrapping the tank in blankets, better yet use staged Styrofoam to place on your aquarium to stop the heat loss.

If the problem is rising temperatures, place ice in plastic bags and float in your aquarium. You want to make sure it is in plastic bags so you do not contaminate your aquarium's water with water that has not been treated.

Conclusion
Once you have all these items to power your important equipment, do a walk through and make sure the actions you have in place, in case of a loss of power, will work. You do not want a surprise when you actually need the equipment.

If you want more information on how to keep an aquarium, download a free eBook, titled "15 Tips On Building And Maintaining An Aquarium", at http://www.squidoo.com/homefreshwateraquariums or at Your Home Freshwater Aquarium.

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