Re: cold fish -Reply

[Frauley/Elson <fraulels@minet.ca>]

Kathryn Olson wrote:
> 
> Gary,
> 
> Sorry to hear about your fish.  Last year in Seattle we gave the fish the blankets and toughed it out in our ski gear.  We were lucky, power was on in 12 hours.
> 
> Kathy
Hi Kathy,
We had around 37 hours off, a few hours on, then 74 or so hours off.
Interestingly, the blanket, hot 2 litre pop bottle trick worked for the
first 37, but the second wave of ice did it. I'm still losing heavily as
a bacterial disease is picking off the post-stressed, which is most
everything I had. The fish I got to a warm place had some wild
temperature swings at the start, and I'm paying now.
I'll wait it out or cure it, whichever comes first, and rebuild. 
It's an extreme lesson for those of us in the relative north here. At
down to -5, a little attention will get you through a day or two, if
you're lightly stocked. You can keep the tanks around 20C with a house
temperature of 10 to 12. At -20, there isn't much to do except try to
keep yourself warm. You stop studying the thermometers in the tanks, and
start eyeballing the blankets over them.
Still, I used to worry when we had a 4-5 hour winter blackout. For very
little time or effort, you can get your fish through. If you act fast,
it shouldn't be a problem.
For the list members scratching their heads at this in Brazil, at least
we didn't have a problem keeping our beer cold.
- -Gary Elson.