February | 2013 | My Reef Tank

It’s been a couple days since Winter Storm Nemo found me in Kingston, MA. Thanks Nemo, for all the wind, the seawater crashing on my house late Friday night and all the seaweed I found in my driveway Saturday when I was shoveling all the snow you brought me. I went 89 hours without power, and honestly, if it weren’t for my reef tank, I don’t think I would have minded too much. Don’t get me wrong – it was inconvenient having to read by candlelight and using a lantern in the bathroom after 5 PM – but it wasn’t the end of the world. The tank on the other hand…

Well, the tank was at about 75 degrees Friday night at 8:40 PM when we lost power. I kept close watch on it, hoping the power would come back on soon. After about an hour, I wrapped the tank in several layers of blankets and towels to preserve as much heat as possible. I also tried to cover the window near the tank with a blanket, using some lime green duct tape to keep it in place. The tank was at about 69 degrees 8 AM Saturday morning. My goal was to keep the tank as close to, while preferably above, 70 degrees as possible. Having at least taken the time to Google what to do for your tank when the power goes out, I found every plastic container that would fit in the tank and filled them with boiling water. Yes, I boiled water on my stove-top (thank goodness for propane!) for hours. This really really helped. Changing out the water every couple hours kept my tank right at 70 degrees.

The one time I let our cat Loki sit on top of the tank… he knew he was just doing his part to keep the tank warm.

Loki: I didn't do it! Nemo: My bad...

On Sunday I remembered that I had a battery operated air pump in my aquarium supplies and got Mt. Wannahockaloogie hooked up and running. The water circulation from the air pump seemed to help disperse the new added heat faster. Thank goodness for my uncle who brought over a charged car battery and an inverter to run the pumps and the heaters in the tank. The battery lasted several hours, and I was able to provide some filtration, circulation and even a little heat. When the battery died, I went back to boiling more water. Later Sunday my uncle ran a REALLY LONG extension cord (100+ yards) from his generator to my house to power the whole tank. I ran everything except the lights until he powered down the generator while everyone was sleeping, just from 1:30am – 6:30am. The tank was cooler Monday morning, but some new boiling water in the bottled and the generator back on brought up the temperature quickly.

Monday afternoon I gave in and ran the lights too, in hopes of making the corals happy. The tank did very well all day, and I noticed the corals all seemed to open up. The snowflakes seemed a little stressed, as I found them hiding in some new places, but they bounced back in no time at all.

1 PM Tuesday the power came back on! And there was much rejoicing. I may or may not have done a little happy dance…

All-in-all I am pleased to report that my tank completely survived Nemo. I am in the process of working on some new updates this month and I will post pictures accordingly. I’m hoping to get some beautiful anthias to add some color to the tank, but first I have to nip this nasty green hair algae in the bud. I want to work on building up a better cleaner crew, perhaps another sand-sifting star might be good and I definitely need some new snails. Future plans include building a sump as well as getting a RO/DI system in place. Maybe with the sump I can even get a UV sterilizer up and running.

In other news, I had an absolutely wonderful Valentine’s Day at the New England Aquarium with Jamie. It’s not true love, if there aren’t fish involved. I drooled over all the fantastic corals and Jamie was able to ID lots of fish on his own! I planned a scavenger hunt challenge for us in which we needed to find: 10 red animals, 1 animal without a heart, and 2 animals we wouldn’t want to hug or kiss. I got some great pictures of reef fish today (see below) and picked up some new NEAq magnets for the fridge. I now have 3 clownfish magnets (yes, clownfish completely dominate my house). I even won tickets to see the new 3D IMAX film “The Last Reef”!

New post coming soon.