PEPCOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!

[Becca]

I had a wonderful Daphnia culture going (thanks Frank!). I fed them on Monday night, and on Tuesday, Pepco had a 9 hour "planned" power outage.

"Planned" as in, we're not going to tell you about it, it's going to start mid-morning, while your at work, and not end until long after you'd want to get started cooking dinner on your electric stove.

The entire culture was dead when I got home - lack of aeration and water movement, plus recent feeding, plus being due for a water change that night equals a trifecta of termination.

At least we didn't lose any fish, but I am seriously, seriously annoyed.

 

[chriscoli]

Ugh! So sorry! My husband got so pissed off at their frequent outages at our house that we got a generator.

I think my Daphnia are still kicking from the last meeting so if you want some, give me a holler....I'll gladly split my culture with you since yours met with such an unfair demise.

 

[mchambers]

Pepco is awful. Just awful.

 

[Ading522]

Glad you didn't lose some fish but sucked that you had to lose that nice daphnia culture..

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[Becca]

Ugh! So sorry! My husband got so pissed off at their frequent outages at our house that we got a generator.

I think my Daphnia are still kicking from the last meeting so if you want some, give me a holler....I'll gladly split my culture with you since yours met with such an unfair demise.

Thank you! I will definitely take you up on that offer, but I might wait the 3 weeks until AFTER we move... Seems silly to set up a new culture just to break it down and move it, especially with Pepco still doing work in our 'hood. We're going to get some sort of battery back-up doohickey after we move - not immediately, because we'll be broke, but maybe after tax-refund season...

 

[golsama]

Sorry to hear about your daphnia. Pepco is very aggravating. Glad you didn't lose any fish though.

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[Pat Kelly]

My BGE used to be out a lot so I bought a portable generator. That was like 7 or 8 years ago and the electric has never gone out for more than an hour or so since....
Same thing with snow.
I bought a snowblower 3 years ago. Have never used it.
LOL
expensive insurance

 

[Tony]

My BGE used to be out a lot so I bought a portable generator. That was like 7 or 8 years ago and the electric has never gone out for more than an hour or so since....
Same thing with snow.
I bought a snowblower 3 years ago. Have never used it.
LOL
expensive insurance

LOL. Think I've used my generator about three times in the last 5 years. Even if I had only used it once though, it paid for itself in saving fish...

 

[Greengirl]

I'm so happy your fish were ok. I have one overstocked tank and I think they would have all died if the power was out for more than 4 hours.

 

[Becca]

I'm so happy your fish were ok. I have one overstocked tank and I think they would have all died if the power was out for more than 4 hours.

Yeah, we had just added about 20 blue tetras to the 150 the night before. That was the only tank that looked a little unhappy, but it is really deep and kept warmer than the other tanks. I wouldn't say it's overstocked because most of the fish are small, but I guess it might be.

The biggest surprise to me was that my grossly overstocked 6 gallon edge with the teeny tiny surface space was OK.

Also, and Sam will like this, even with the power out for that long, when the canister filters came back online they did not kill anything, spew sludge, or do anything else godawful, which is good, because it came on a bit before Pepco said it would, and I hadn't had time (or the wits just yet) to unplug and open them.

 

[mchambers]

Just a reminder that Frank Cowherd's excellent advice on dealing with power outages is here:

http://aquaticlifefarm.com/web_pages/alf_article_pwr.html

I don't think a 4 hour outage would kill most fish.

 

[dogofwar]

+1 on Frank's advice.

It also never hurts to have a battery powered air pump or 3 (and D batteries) around. An amazingly small amount of bubbling will provide enough to keep the fish going. When collecting in Uruguay, we routinely transport 20-30 3-4" fish in a bucket with nothing but an airstone. Turn the airstone off and it's lights out in no time (we also change the water at least twice per day).

Another tip is to keep things in the dark: less active fish consume less oxygen.

I had minimal losses after nearly 6 days of no power during the Derecho... with a couple of battery pumps, no feeding and darkness...

Matt

PS Pepco sucks.

Just a reminder that Frank Cowherd's excellent advice on dealing with power outages is here:

http://aquaticlifefarm.com/web_pages/alf_article_pwr.html

I don't think a 4 hour outage would kill most fish.

 

[Becca]

+1 on Frank's advice.

It also never hurts to have a battery powered air pump or 3 (and D batteries) around.

Yep, used that on the 150 - had to raid baby toys to find the batteries .

Franks advice on outages is awesome and we have used it before when dealing with outages.

 

[chriscoli]

had to raid baby toys to find the batteries .

That's awesome!

 

[Becca]

That's awesome!

Yeah, Isaac will be sorely disappointed when he flicks the "vibration" switch on the swing he outgrew months ago and finds that it no longer creates a loud humming sound and shakes the entire floor of his bedroom. The first time he turned the darn thing on himself it took me about 5 minutes searching to figure out that the noise wasn't the little fish tank in his room.

 

[festaedan]

Pepco is awful. Just awful.

I agree, my house once lost power for over 2 weeks because of them!