What to expect after 24hours power failure

[terriertype]

We lost power due to an ice storm on Friday. It was out for 24 hours. Tank temp dropped to 59F same as house. I did manage to put in a battery operated air stone. The power is still a bit iffy with little spikes and brown outs.

I have leather corals that looked very unhappy, acan, torch- looks dead, hammers,frog spawn, mushrooms, candy cane, buttons, zoa, sun, lobo, favia, kenya tree.

In fish I have a blenny scooter, lawnmower, fairy wrasse, royal gramma and chromis& cleaner shrimp.I feed the fish mysis shrimp with the hope that the high fat would help them deal with the cold.

My clean up crew includes snails, brittle star and blue leg crabs.

Any ideas as to what will happen and what I should be on the look out for?

I am going to do a 20% water change today, once I get RO water. Of course that will mean waiting for the streets to be cleared of downed trees, not branches - trees. I was also planning on target feeding any corals that are open.

I have attached a picture on my front lawn. It will be a busy day.

 

[DaveK]

No doubt there has been a lot of stress placed on your reef system. Until you get through it, you just never know how bad things are going to be. You could loose almost everything or you might come through with no losses or issues.

Th most important thing to keep looking for at this point is dead fish, corals, or other livestock. Remove anything like that as soon as possible.

Test your water, especially for ammonia and nitrite. If you get reading there, you likely have something dead in the system. Test but don't worry too much about the other parameters, unless something is way out.

For corals, if in doubt, give them the smell test. A dead coral will really smell foul. Don't worry too much id they don't come out for a few days. They have have been heavly stressed.

Unless you need to make a water change to get ammonia down, or correct some major water problems, do not make a water change at this point. That can introduce even more stress.

Do not feed anything until this has run it's course. Yje livestock will be fine. You don't want to introduce food now because it will be create waste products they system will need to deal with.

I would also add or change carbon in the filtration system and clean or change any mechanical filter media. At this point the most important things to get going are the filtration system and the heater. Lighting can wait. You might want to keep the lighting dim for a few days.

You'll find your system will come back quickly once it's all running again, but it is possible to have major livestock losses in the process.

 

[nanoreefing4fun]

Great advise ^