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Power go out?

A few years ago the power went out from a ice storm. The first night I wasn't too concerned because the power is usually restored pretty quickly around here. The next morning I went and check on the temperatures of my tanks and was scared stiff. They were all in the high 60's and dropping fast. After hearing that the power company was expecting to restore power in 5-10 days I had to act fast. I started bringing hot water from my moms house across town 3 times a day. This kept the temperature in the mid to low 70's and I thought that was pretty good considering it was getting into the 40's in my house. After 2 days I moved my family to my moms house but the tanks had to stay home. I came up with the idea of boiling water in canning jars and putting those in the tanks as make-shift heaters. This worked quite well. I only had to do this 2 times a day and it kept the temperature around 78F. It also lessened the chance of frying my fish with the hot water being poured in and the constant draining water and treating the new water. With all the power concerns around the country right now hopefully this will help someone some time. Out of 3 tanks and over 20 fish I lost 1 due to the power outage. thats pretty good considering I have lost more fish due to the fact that my daughter feeds my fish tuna fish sandwiches "cause there hungry".


• Steve this was a way cool story...thanks for making me laugh...good thinking...
  

• Great idea. We have a generator that my husband has hooked up twice. No power outages here yet, but wind storms and bad weather that caused the outages.I have seen battery operated air pumps in the catalogs for sale, but not any heaters yet.