Help

[pickront]

I have a 75g with 3 fish and an eel

I turned of my protein skimmer and all of my water pumps in the vening around 9 and left them off all nithg while I was working on my sump tank. When I awoke this morning my fish were all at the bottom of the tank basicly motionless, this is very unusal especially for my Spiny Puffer fish becasue he always comes out when I'm near the tank. Pls helpHELP

[ixbx]

what is your water temp? where is your heater located? in your sump, or tank? I am not an expert but some fish do sleep on the bottom of the tank. I know my clown fish used to,(thought he was dead once) until it hooked up with the anemone. get your water moving again and just watch what happens when your lights come back on.

[Deacon]

I agree with ixbx. Get those pumps running again ASAP. Don't know exactly why the fish are acting differently but obviously something is amiss.

Water circulation is important for many reasons....oxygen levels, temp regulation, ammonia-nitrite-nitrate process....

[pickront]

Thanks guys I used a spare 20 gallon tank I had and setup my Skimmer and pumps, I called home to check on my fish and they seem to be doing fine. They gave me quite a scare this morning. i can't believe I was actually said because my fish seemd sick. I would never tell anyone though, I just say it becasue of all the money that I've invested in them :)



Again Thanks

[pickront]

Is it possible for my nitrite levels to spike over night because of this.

[Deacon]

Hey pick,
Well "spike" might be kind of a strong word, but IMO its possible that there are some elevated levels of ammonia and nitrite. In the future, if you need to turn off the pumps for more than a couple of hours, you could run a powerhead or two in the tank just to keep the water moving. That would buy you some more time.

Glad to hear the fish are looking good!!

[fishteacher73]

Also, depending on the algae situation in the tank O2 levels will drop at night, and with no water movement, this can be exagerated....Whith resumed circulation the O2 levels probably went back up.

[Vilas]

Ahh yes, the reason why reefers fear power outages so badly.
Oxygen is often the culprit in a case like this, however, if you have some kind of mechanical filtration that provides a place for bacteria to colonize, having that suddenly removed can also be harmful. If you think about it, in any case, without circulation, you're not getting water past the bacteria that work to keep your system going - so things can build up.
I had a three day long power outage this summer in a heat wave. Battery powered airstones, stirring the tank every hour or so (even set an alarm!) and ice cubes got me through okay - but I had no fish, just a ton of corals.