How long without heat and air?

[redchecker]

What is the coldest and longest anyone has had their discus go without heat and filtration and lived?
I had the power go out at my house in Washington this last weekend and did not have any air or heat from Friday at 11pm until Sunday at 7pm. I covered my tanks with blankets and did not feed the fish to help conserve body heat and energy. I have a well so I had no water to boil and none of my local fish stores would let me rent tank space.I was in a pinch.
So the power finally goes on and I boil water and place it in a bucket then I add water from the tank to it. When it got to a temperature I felt comfortable with I netted the discus and wow was the water cold. I placed them in the bucket. They were looking up at the top of the tank floating hardly moving. I put them in the bucket and they went crazy swimming round and round. I cranked both heaters up to 88,removed about a fourth of the water from both tanks and boiled water to add to the tank. to try to get it heated.
At about 12am I transferred the discus back to the tank and crossed my fingers. I awoke this morning to find all the discus alive

[Ryan]

Healthy discus can take quite a beating. Living in Florida, we deal with hurricanes and thunderstorms for about half the year. My power goes out fairly frequently in the summer and fall. The temperatures don't drop that low because the climate here is mild, but I've gone several days without filters. The trick is having tanks that aren't overstocked -- the fish can usually breathe fairly well as long as the tank isn't packed full of fish.

I mentioned this before, but I had a South American community (no discus) 55 gallon that went a month with no filters or power. I had to leave my house when the first of three hurricanes hit in 2004 and I didn't manage to make it back home for over 3 weeks. When I came home, I expected dead fish and a nasty smell in the house. To my surprise, everyone was alive (except for two unfortunate rams which I think became food).

Ryan

[Cosmo]

I left Chicago one February during a heavy snow storm, with the temp about 10 degrees to start a cross country move to LA. In the van, I had a rubbermaid garbage can with 6 or 8 adult Discus (been 26 yrs so the numbers a little fuzzy... lol) had an airpump hooked to a converter, but no heater cause the converter was too puny.. by the time I checked into the first motel, the water was cold :( Did a small WC from the tap and repeated this procedure for the entire journey.... they all made it just fine :)

A healthy Discus is a hardy fish.. a lot depends on thier health before they're subjected to less than ideal conditions..

Best of luck, hope they all make it through :)

Jim

[dtownkennel]

During hurricane Katrina I had about 6 or 7 discus in a 75 gallon tank with no air for 10 days...not one died, but then again it wasnt during winter.

[KIWI13]

Man America sounds rough with all the storms you guys go through.. LOL.. IN New Zealand the only time I left home was on holiday..

I am lucky to not have storms in the areas I live but I really do feel for people living in storm sensitive areas.. Just another issue in life to deal with.. Everytime I see something on the news, I say a lil prayer for those people that shut their door behind em, not knowing what they will come back too..

Jason

[Timbo]

my last shipment of 9 discus arrived with water temp of 63F

4 came down with mild hex, 5 day standard metro treatment...all are fine and still thriving two months later - the other 5 required no treatment at all

[redchecker]

well mine seem a little more chiper now. Kinda like "oh wow I almost died." Maybe they'll get this spawning thing down now. All 10 discus are doing well eating and acting like themselves again. Thanks for the responses.

[Bainbridge Mike]

Hey Redchecker:

My power was out for 14 hours. Over the years I have collected about 6 battery-powered airpumps. They are cheap and run off 2 D-cell batteries. If you hook them up to your sponges, you can keep the biofiltration going for a long time. My fish got chilled down to the low 70's, but all recovered just fine.

Mike