Hello all,
I confess that I myself am not a keeper of a marine aquarium, but I am tank-sitting a couple of saltwater tanks for some good friends who are on vacation.
In the middle of the night the power went off and came back on again immediately thereafter. Because the power came on again right away, I did not think about my friends' tanks being affected; however, when I went over to their apartment a little bit ago to feed the fish, one of the tanks was fine, but the other had apparently been plugged into a circuit breaker so the power to the light, pump, heater, etc. for that tank did not come back on and had been out for at least twelve hours.
As soon as I got the power back to the tank and everything was running again, I checked for damage: the tank was at 70 degrees, the cleaner shrimp was dead (I removed it quickly), the two clownfish were groggy but seemed to perk up a little in the twenty minutes or so that I watched them, and most of the corals looked pretty unhappy, especially the bubble coral (who is pretty tightly deflated; I am not certain if it is alive or not).
My friends left me with no instructions on how to check pH, ammonia, etc; only with instructions on how to do a water change (matching salinity and temperature of the prepared water they have left for me with the water that is already in the tank). My questions are these:
Based on this (admittedly vague) information, how much of the tank's status might be from the cold and how much from the dead shrimp? (I am not certain how long the shrimp was dead, it could be anywhere from minutes to as long as 24 hours, which was the last time I fed them yesterday, at which time all were fine, before the power outage.) Should I do a 15% water change or so? The water in the tank seems pretty clear, and there is no buildup of anything unusual-looking anywhere--again, however, I don't have the knowledge of how (or even what equipment to use) to measure any substance levels other than salinity. Or should I wait until the tank warms up and see how everything is doing? I am afraid to do a water change because I fear that I could hurt everything in the tank more if I measured improperly, but I am equally fearful of leaving the tank as it is if the shrimp's (and possibly the bubble coral's) death could have imbalanced something. Which would be worse?
I apologize for the length of this post; I know next to nothing about saltwater aquariums but I am frantic to not let my friends down. If anyone could give me some advice on the best course of action to take, I would greatly appreciate your help!!!!!
I confess that I myself am not a keeper of a marine aquarium, but I am tank-sitting a couple of saltwater tanks for some good friends who are on vacation.
In the middle of the night the power went off and came back on again immediately thereafter. Because the power came on again right away, I did not think about my friends' tanks being affected; however, when I went over to their apartment a little bit ago to feed the fish, one of the tanks was fine, but the other had apparently been plugged into a circuit breaker so the power to the light, pump, heater, etc. for that tank did not come back on and had been out for at least twelve hours.
As soon as I got the power back to the tank and everything was running again, I checked for damage: the tank was at 70 degrees, the cleaner shrimp was dead (I removed it quickly), the two clownfish were groggy but seemed to perk up a little in the twenty minutes or so that I watched them, and most of the corals looked pretty unhappy, especially the bubble coral (who is pretty tightly deflated; I am not certain if it is alive or not).
My friends left me with no instructions on how to check pH, ammonia, etc; only with instructions on how to do a water change (matching salinity and temperature of the prepared water they have left for me with the water that is already in the tank). My questions are these:
Based on this (admittedly vague) information, how much of the tank's status might be from the cold and how much from the dead shrimp? (I am not certain how long the shrimp was dead, it could be anywhere from minutes to as long as 24 hours, which was the last time I fed them yesterday, at which time all were fine, before the power outage.) Should I do a 15% water change or so? The water in the tank seems pretty clear, and there is no buildup of anything unusual-looking anywhere--again, however, I don't have the knowledge of how (or even what equipment to use) to measure any substance levels other than salinity. Or should I wait until the tank warms up and see how everything is doing? I am afraid to do a water change because I fear that I could hurt everything in the tank more if I measured improperly, but I am equally fearful of leaving the tank as it is if the shrimp's (and possibly the bubble coral's) death could have imbalanced something. Which would be worse?
I apologize for the length of this post; I know next to nothing about saltwater aquariums but I am frantic to not let my friends down. If anyone could give me some advice on the best course of action to take, I would greatly appreciate your help!!!!!
