# Power outage & shrimp



## Symplicity (Oct 14, 2011)

Hey all my power has been out for like 12 hrs now..

Is my bacteria colony going to die in my filters?

What should I do once my power comes back on? 

Should I do a small W/C and double dose of BT-9?


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## bettaforu (Sep 6, 2009)

Don't panic....#1  Shrimp don't need heat, they can live in a bucket of dirty stagnant water (mine have done several times) so they will be fine for a few days without water changes. I didn't change my water for sometimes 2 weeks at a time and they were still all breeding normally.

If you have plants in your tanks that is the key to the water quality, as plants continually give out oxygen and live bacteria is on each one, so there is no problem with your tank not having filtration for a few days.

Once the power does come back on, just do a small water change 10% is sufficient, as you don't want to freak out your shrimps and doing major water changes is more likely to kill your shrimps than a few days without filtration.

I think this ice storm is more likely to affect many marine tanks than freshwater tanks, planted tanks should be just fine. 

Temp for most freshwater fish (with the exception of Rams that I know of) shouldn't be too bad...your house should be at room temp or warmer before the power outage, and as long as all doors and windows are tight shut the temp in the rooms should not go down too dramaticly, so the water temp might not drop too extreme over a few days.

Those fish that need higher temps might be a problem and I am sorry if anyone does lose them, that's a shame.

Here's a tip for anyone trying to keep warm water inside the tanks, use up any seranwrap you have in the house and cover the top of the tanks with it, with just a tiny opening to let air in....that should help contain the heat in the tank for a while. I do this on my Betta breeding tanks to keep the moist heated air inside and it works.

Hope everyone comes thru this without too much loss.


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