General Care Discussion :: What if I lost power?!!

[ratfink]

So last night there was an ice storm here in New England. Luckily I was one of the few people that did not loose power. What if i did loose power? What would i do with Henry? the temo in his tank is at a steady temp. I think the temp would keep for a while but whats too cold? and how could i keep him warm? I dont loose heat in the house if i loose power. Has this happen to any one?

thanks

[Daniel3507]

i think too cold would be around 70. i lost power last year because of an ice storm. i took the battery out of my Bronco and hooked up an adapter and plugged the water heater into it. after the battery went dead though i had to go buy a 10 gallon tank with a heater and moved him to my grandparents house for a day or 2 till we got power back.

[SpotsMama]

For a short time, you can hold some of the heat in the tank by wrapping it in blankets.

[Daniel3507]

actually now that i think about it JAX just lost power from ice and is now in a hotel room. thats always an option if you cant find anyone with power.

[BullDog]

I've just been thinking about that myself. I figured I could warm the water with boiling water, and if necessary, bring them downstairs where the fireplace is.

[steve]

If your area is experiences prolonged power outages, would you be able to get a generator?

[TheComputerGremlin]

Yeah, I'm living in a hotel room until further notice. We had some spare rubbermaid containers around, so Umi is in the bathroom with her water heater and about 15 gallons of water. She doesn't have a basking area or basking bulb/UVB, but she'll survive for the couple days that's necessary. I can say that based on how quickly our apartment was losing heater, I would recommend getting out if at all possible. Even keeping the turtle dry docked for a few days with the occasional dip should be fine. But right now her tank at home is room temp which is 58 degrees. Her water was 78 when the power went off and our apartment was around 74, so in just two days, we've lost a lot of heat.

Had I not been able to get out, I would probably have let her start to hibernate. The temps were slowly decreasing, and I had stopped feeding her as soon as the power went out, just in case.

[MoreBloodWine]

You could also get a dedicated UPS for the air stones and heater and be safe for like 2-3 hrs... time depending on how big of a UPS you get. I use one on my geckos tank / DVR's... just need to get one for Niko but I wont worry about that for a while because we rarely lose power here.

UPS = Uninterupted Power Source

[DebbieJean]

I have lost power since I've had my two turtles, I was very worried about them getting cold. I did something I should not of done and hopefully will never have to do again, I put Goblin in with BammBamm since BammBamm's aquarium had a warmer temp. I stayed right there tho to keep an eye on them. We will need to hook the generator up to both my aquariums if it ever happens again even if we have to get another one, that way my dad can heat the house still. I hate power outages.

[CB]

heat being an issue with a real outtage. my thoughts are on the small 1 minute blups. once my filter (xp3) kicks off and i'm not home what happens when it kicks back on? gfci, surge protector and all that don't help. so what if?
cb

[marisa]

I've never had a problem with an XP3 stopping and going back on when the power returned. Canister filters just start up again. It's filters like Aquaclears that lose their prime when the power goes off.

[TurtleLover_S&B]

Well,there's many ways from the responses like going to a hotel.Other than that I really don't know other way.

[littlecakes]

We were one of the unlucky few to have had power go out this past week in the ice storm for five days. We only moved out of the city in September so we didn't have a generator or know anything about how to hook up a car battery to anything etc.
My husband and I took turns boiling water and putting them in hot water bottles and putting them in the tanks along with wrapping the tanks in towels and putting plastic sheeting over most of the top to keep the heat from evaporating too fast. We did this for the first two days, thinking the power will go on any second - then checked the propane tanks to find that they were very very low. Our neighbor lent us a kerosene heater but that thing let out some awful fumes, and even with some windows open we aborted that plan after a day and a half. For a day or so we let the water go to room temperature as we were so exhausted from not sleeping for days and hoped that they would start to go into hibernation without too much trauma afterwards. Then the last day we were lucky enough to find a propane camping heater for sale, the last one, at a camping store and put that in the turtle room.
Once the heat came back they quickly came back to normal life and are acting like usual and I am so thankful that so far as I know at this point, they made it through in one piece.
We are looking into getting a small generator for future use for sure because we have 4 other mammalian animals and would have a hard time getting a hotel room or even asking any friends to take the WHOLE family in. Here is a picture of Ichigo reviving in her warmed up water.

[BullDog]

Wow! Sounds like quite the ordeal littlecakes!

Wow! Ichigo has such a pretty shell! Looks like she made a fantastic recovery

[SpotsMama]

Sounds like you guys did a heroic job, staying home without heat for 5 years. Not that you had much choice! But it sounds like you did the best you could to take care of your little zoo.