There are three main emergencies that the saltwater tank owner needs to be prepared for if possible. Knowing what to do when faced with a leaking tank, an electrical outage, or a tank that is overheating can go a long way towards turning an emergency into a learning experience.

A leaking saltwater tank does not have to mean disaster for the carpet or floors in your home if you act quickly. If you discover a leak, bring out those clean five-gallon buckets you have collected just in case you needed them, and start dipping the salt water out of your aquarium. The idea is to save as much of the water as you can. Take a fish net, and gently catch your fish, then place them in the five-gallon buckets of aquarium water.

I hope that you have anticipated a saltwater tank problem, and have another aquarium that you can quickly set up. The longer your saltwater fish have to spend in those buckets, the greater are the chances that they may not survive. Once you get the spare tank set up, place your fish and their water into it, hook up your filters, heater, and lights, and all is well again.

If your power goes out during a storm, it could be off for ten minutes or ten days, depending on the severity of the storm and where you live. Prepare for this problem by obtaining an air pump that runs on batteries. This will help to keep the oxygen levels in your saltwater aquarium as close to normal as possible, as well as aerate the water. If it is cold, you will want to keep your fish as warm as you can. A heavy blanket wrapped around the tank will help keep the heat in.

If you live in an area where the power goes off routinely for a few days during storm season, a small portable generator of the kind used for camping could work out to be cheaper than batteries for you. You can plug the electrical accessories, such as your saltwater tank’s filtration system, heater and the like, right into the generator, which can run for several hours on a tank of fuel.

An aquarium heater that malfunctions can be dangerous to your fish if it is allowed to run unchecked. Make a habit of checking the temperature of the water on a daily basis. If you should discover that the water in your saltwater tank is too hot, immediately begin to remove some of the water in those five-gallon buckets we spoke of earlier. Set the buckets to one side once they are full, as you will be adding the water back to the tank when it is cooler.

Fill some plastic Ziploc bags with ice cubes, and float them in the aquarium. You must use the plastic bags, as regular ice cubes would dilute the salinity of your tank water. Monitor the temperature of the water in the tank as well as the water in the buckets. Remove the ice cubes when the tank water has cooled to around its usual temperature, and pour the water from the buckets back into the tanks once it is cool enough.

If you experience a saltwater tank problem like the ones mentioned here, try to stay calm and remember the procedures outlined in this article. Just by knowing what to do can keep a saltwater tank emergency from becoming a possible disaster.

How to prepare your aquarium before you leave for a vacation.

If you’ve been doing some research on taking care of your new aquarium or are an experienced fish keeper, you’ll no doubt have noticed that while the requirements of an aquarium are not very difficult to fulfill, they do require ongoing attention. So what happens if you want to go on vacation and no one will be around to do water changes? What if there’s a family emergency that takes your time and attention for extended periods of time? Life is so unpredictable you can never be absolutely certain that you’ll always be there to look after your fish, but with a few alterations to your daily aquarium care schedule you can effectively switch to a temporary “low-maintenance” mode.

The primary concern with extended absences or emergency situations where there’s just no time to perform aquarium maintenance tasks is the water quality. Depending on stocking levels, aquariums need a partial water change anywhere from once a month to as often as once a week. If you’re like me, you barely trust anyone else to feed your fish, much less perform water changes, so the ideal solution is to find a way to maintain water quality for extended periods until you can resume your normal maintenance routine.

Water changes are done to remove excess nitrates in the system; nitrate is the end product after ammonia and nitrites from waste and uneaten food have been broken down by beneficial bacteria. If you wish to slow the rate of nitrate buildup, you simply have to reduce the amount of waste and uneaten food in the aquarium; when you’re not able to do water changes, this means feeding less. In the wild there is no guarantee of getting regular food; as a result a fish’s metabolism is such that the fish can take advantage of food when it is offered but can also live for days or weeks with very little or no food without it having an adverse effect on the fish’s health. So, option one is to cut back to only feeding the fish once every two or three days; this won’t completely stop the level of nitrates from growing, but it will help slow it.

Next, you can use a water maintenance product such as EcoBio-Block in your aquarium. EcoBio-Block contains a strain of hardy beneficial bacteria that break down the ammonia and nitrites from waste. Additionally, the product leaches essential minerals into the water; these minerals are used up quickly by the fish and generally need to be replaced through water changes unless a water maintenance product is present. There is also evidence indicating that EcoBio-Block helps promote the growth of anaerobic bacteria in the substrate which breaks nitrates down into a gas that can evaporate, making water changes unnecessary. There haven’t been sufficient studies to confirm this yet, but aquarists have observed low nitrate levels and have been able to go for even a year at a time without doing a partial water change. Organic material such as waste and excess food will still need to be removed either through the filtration system or gravel vacuums, but that can be done at your leisure.

Other than ensuring water quality, about the only maintenance routine that must be seen to regardless of outside events are occasional checks to ensure there is no disease showing in the tank, no deaths for any reason, that filter pads are clean and all equipment are running properly.
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The most important thing to keep going in the aquarium is the oxygen exchange. Beneficial bacteria in the tank require a lot of oxygen, so once a filter and aerator stop working the dissolved oxygen depletes very quickly. Once oxygen is depleted the bacteria colonies begin dying off or becoming inactive, allowing ammonia levels to rise. Hardy strains of bacteria such as the bacillus subtilis natto strain used in EcoBio-Block will mostly become inactive, but return to actively breaking down ammonia as soon as proper oxygen levels are restored. This can happen within an hour or two of losing power, depending on stocking levels. Additionally, a lot of beneficial bacteria lives in filter media so if you have a canister filter or HOB filter that keeps the media out of the main body of water a large portion of the aquarium’s bacteria may be unavailable instantly.

This is where planning ahead can be a real lifesaver…and back saver! If your power goes out and you don’t have a generator, having all your aquarium equipment plugged into an uninterrupted power supply is possibly one of the best ways to keep going for short-term outages. Battery-powered aerators are available online and in many pet stores as well and can be a great asset during outages or when traveling with fish. If none of these are available, you can manually facilitate oxygen exchange by filling a pitcher from the tank (here’s where the back comes in) and dumping the water back in, then repeating at regular intervals until power comes back.

Now for temperature control; in cold weather, a watertight container filled with boiling water (provided you have a gas range or access to a wood-burning stove) makes a great heater that will keep fish near it warm. In hot weather, a water-tight container or two or three ziplock baggies inside each other (to prevent leaks) with ice cubes in it will keep water near it cool enough for the fish.

If the power is out for extended periods of time you may have to watch the water parameters closely when the aquarium is functioning again as a lot of beneficial bacteria can die from oxygen deprivation, causing ammonia spikes. To control these you’ll either need to do water changes every day to keep ammonia levels down until the bacteria catches up again, or you can add some new bacteria from products such as EcoBio-Block or BioSpira. BioSpira is a bottled bacteria culture that works well, but has to be refrigerated and has a limited shelf life so it may not be the best for emergency preparation. EcoBio-Block is a water maintenance product that lasts about 1 1/2-2 years in the aquarium; this product introduces and promotes the growth of beneficial bacteria as well as keeps the water parameters healthy, which can reduce fish stress in an emergency. EcoBio-Block is a very valuable maintenance product that will keep the aquarium water healthy every day in addition to emergency uses, but it can take up to a couple of weeks to start working initially so it should already be in place to be effective in an emergency.

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