Two 'more' Questions

[sxyatsxty1]

1) How much water do you think evaporates from your tanks each week?

2) Lost power for about an hour this afternoon....very typical of my electric company. Got me to thinking: what do you do in case of a long term power outage? I guess as long as the tanks stay relatively warm, the fish might not stress too much but what about filtration?


EC

[Brownsnoutuk]

Re: Two 'more' Questions

1) Covered tank(glass lids cut perfectly to fit) Hardly anything, not noticeable over 2 weeks.
 Uncovered tank depends on surface agitation, filters used, water temperature, airstones running? My uncovered tanks normally lose upto an inch over 2 weeks. Lots of surface agitation.

2) Dont overstock your tanks, you can stir the surface of the water up to oxygenate the water. The warmer the tanks get the more you need to aerate them. You can buy battery airpumps(there was a couple at the last GHAC raffle.) A battery airpump with a seeded sponge filter will work for a while. I think EK was freezing waterbottles to put in some of his tanks during Hurricane season to keep the temp from getting too hot.

[Zulaab]

Re: Two 'more' Questions

1.  With a lid over your tank you should be looking at about 1G of loss per 40G of tank water per 5 days.   Without a lid.. about triple that (this is what I am finding out)

2.  Power loss...  there are a couple of ways to handle this.  a.  You can buy a UPS and power an airpump while the lights are out.  This would handle most of your problems short term.   If you have long term electrical failures but not often then invest is some battery operated airpumps as they will last about 12-24 hours on batteries.  Ofcourse the first option is more expensive but you dont have to worry about the batteries running out anytime soon and you will also not need to be home for the UPS to continue operation when the power goes out.  The second option is fairly inexpensive but you are looking at needing to power them on manually.

[szidlon]

Re: Two 'more' Questions

Pen Plax does make a battery operated air pump that stays plugged into the wall but does not switch on unless there's a power outage, then it operates off the batteries, it's the Pen Plax B11 model.  Just need be sure to check the batteries every now and then.

[sxyatsxty1]

Re: Two 'more' Questions

Good suggestions, gang. Tanks.

Oh, and another thing I've been meaning to ask......but nobody laugh, OK?

When I had my shop down in Florida, every Monday when we were closed, it was clean tanks day. I had this 'thingie' I would put in the tanks after I stirred up the gravel which would filter out all the crap. Can someone tell me what that was I was using? It's on the tip of my tongue but I can't for the life of me remember what it was called.

EC

[Brownsnoutuk]

Re: Two 'more' Questions

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[Brownsnoutuk]

Re: Two 'more' Questions

huh.. I cant write Python?

[mrairportjunke]

Re: Two 'more' Questions

gravel sucky stirry thingy.  haha

[szidlon]

Re: Two 'more' Questions

Was it an actual filter, like a diatom or something like that?

[sxyatsxty1]

Re: Two 'more' Questions

It was a big glass jar with screw cap. Had two tube lines running out of it. Both lines hung on the side of the tank; one line pulled the tank water in which went through a filter and the other line put the filtered water back in the tank. I remember washing the filter 'bag' out many times. Understand....this was over 30 years ago and I haven't dabbled in fish since then so my memory of this is hit and miss.

I was thinking if I knew what this was, I might get one for my tanks.


EC

[szidlon]

Re: Two 'more' Questions

Humm, haven't seen anything like that around.  I know there are some HOB Hot Magnum systems that do the same thing, but they are just filters.  You could check with some of the LFS's and see if they currently use anything similiar.

[sxyatsxty1]

Re: Two 'more' Questions

Szlidon......I looked up a diatom filter and that looks almost like what I was talking about. Of course, after 30 years, everything changes but I think you've solved the mystery for me. Tanks.

EC

[spyke1969]

Re: Two 'more' Questions

i was thinking diatom also 8)