During hurricane Katrina, we were out of power for a few days. We have this thing called a power inverter, that you hook up to a car battery and you can run a few household items. Well I thought that they needed air pumps the most, so off went the heaters and the filters. Needless to say, all my tanks are now recycling, and are almost finished.

But now here comes another hurricane, Rita and it looks like it could be coming right toward us again.

Any suggestions on how to not kill my good bugs? What is more important air or filter? I wish I could run both, but I would have to get a generator to do that, and thats lots of money

Please pray for that hurricane to go away, I cant take another one!!

If I have to cycle again I'll lose my mind hehe.


Any advice on this matter is greatly appreciated Thanks!

I know this is prolly not the right area, but I need answers kinda quick, since this hurricane could be here Sat. morning. Forgive me

we'll be worring about our fish together! we just missed Katrina, but we're gonna get some of Rita if it keeps going to Texas we'll be in the 30-60 wind range and if it hits LA then it will be worse so i'm kinda worried about our elec going out too. i can kick myself now for not ordering some battery operated air pumps.

Ahhh hey another Louisianian!! Where are you located? Im in Baton Rouge, it is still nuts here from the hurricane, are population doubled, traffic is whacked!

The power inverters are great, you can get them at Sam's and they can run the air pumps and maybe more if you get a big one, ours isnt that big though.

Good luck with the storm, my yard got trashed with the last one, but we got real lucky alot of my neighbors got trees in their houses!


Not to mention all the lives lost just an hour away from here, so sad

yea i was actually thinking about that this morning, if there was anyone else in LA on here then i saw you! lol, i live in evangeline parish, we always just miss everything here. i'm glad your house wasn't too bad off. it is sad, all the things that are going on. i work at an rv dealership so we've had quiet a few buy rv's to live in cause they have no homes anymore and alot more that come in for parts. there are alot staying in our parks. we don't have a sam's close by, but my fish survied hurricane lilly without elec for 4 days so hopefully they'll be ok if something does happen, as long as it keeps going to texas it shouldn't be too bad here. of course i don't wish it on anyone else either

Hmm Evangeline parish? Is that close to Ville Platte? what town you close to? I think I go through there to get to Oakdale, where my grandma lives. Well its nice to know that someone from La is on the forums, nice to meet ya.

Im off to go to work now, talk to ya soon!!

Hopefully someone has an answer about my good biobugs!!

Be back later this evening, take care.

SuSu - if you make sure the filter cartridges stay wet and have a source of ammonia, you should be OK. You can put them in a cup of old tank water and every other say or so add a tiny bit of fish food.

Good luck to you and Kissy! I'll be thinking about you!

My best friend just went down to Mississippi to help assess the damage from Katrina, I'm worried sick about her and she'll be gone for 3 months!!!

SuSu - well i didn't want to say exactly where i live but since you guess it yep that's evangeline parish.

i'm sorry about your friend littleone, i'm sure she'll be fine, but has a lot of work to do. my coworkers went down there two days after the hurricane to get family members.

Hi! Sorry to hear that Rita is not going away...but it has been downgraded (although, cat 4 si still not good) - I will be thinking of you guys this week and hoping that the worst will not occur...

I would like to know more about this power inverter... How long do they last?

What kind of filer do you have? I agree, the bugs should be OK as long as they are submerged (and fed). Maybe some batery operated air pumps would help... I have heard that they are loud and since they run on batteries they are not the most efficient thing but, they work.

Keeping the water cool and fresh is the biggest part, agitation can be done manually if you are home - or even with a battery operated fan when you are not. Taking some tank water out of the tank and keeping it in a bucket then pouring it back in periodically helps by providing agitation. I'm sure you looked all this up beofre Katrina so sorry if I am repeating something you already know...

Huh? I don't think there's a Hurricane coming my way...at least to my knowlege lol. Do you mean Jayde or some one else?? Lol

As long as it is temporary, keeping the bugs wet and with their ammonia food will be okay. They also need O2, so a battery operated air pump will help them survive, as well as the goldies Good luck with the hurricane!

This might be a silly question, but here goes.

If I rinse the filter cartridges off, so most of the guck is off, can I just keep them in the tank with the fish? since there will be oxygen and ammonia source in the tank?



For Graham who wanted to know about the power inverter, they make different strengths, the higher the wattage the more things you can run.

Like when the power was out last time, I was able to run 2 air pumps, a lamp, the tv and dvd player.

All you have to do is have a car with a good battery, hook the inverter to the battery, and extension cords plug into that, and run the extension cords into the house. Voila! Every hour or two it is a good idea to start the car and run it for about 15 minutes so you dont run the battery down on the car, other than that it was great and came in very handy, they sell it at Sams club and at Walmart I think. Here is a link to show you what it looks like.Power Inverter

Yes! Keeping them in the tank would be a good idea - less trouble.

Thanks for the link on the power inverter - I have never heard of that before! THe only thing is, I live in an apartment - that would pretty funny!

Kissy - I think the earlier comment was a typo for KristySweets name - she is also in Hurricane Country!

I wouldn't rinse off the gunk for now, there's lots of bugs living in there and you probably want as many as possible! After power returns, you can rinse it off, but make sure you do it in old tank water. If you rinse under tap, you'll kill all the buggies!

I would gently rinse off the gunk and put them in the tank. Putting a battery operated bubbler under them would help move water and air thru them to help keep the water and the biobugs happy. I found some bubblers for bait buckets at Walmart for cheap that run on D batteries.

Before you start the filters back up, be sure and dump the water that's been sitting in them.