Emergency - Help needed

[Rays]

It is tedious, but in a situation like that, without battery pumps, the best thing to do is take a large glass, tumbler etc.. Fill the glass and from an elevated area above tank dump the glass of tank water, this will create turbulance and add O2 to the water. The tedious part is it's repetitious.

 

[wrassefan]

I posted the link for a pic only...figured you needed a visual to look for....also figured you wouldn't wait to order online...hope it all worked out

 

[necco]

Thank you all for your help. I would have posted earlier, but as the power went on another problem came up. My boiler started pissing water out of the relief valve and it took a couple hours and alot of wet/dry vacing before the sitution was under control.

Well 13 hours of no power and 4 out of 9 fish survived, my sixline is still MIA and hopes are very low. Thank you all again for your help, I'd like to think that the help that you gave help the last 4 fish survive. My 2 Tomato clowns, LMB, and I forget the name but he's in my avatar. I'm afraid my Sailfin tang, CBB, 2 blue reef chromis, my sixline MIA, and a cleaner shrimp were not so lucky. I feel so bad about the Sailfin and CBB the most, I really loved them. The CBB rid my main tank of Aiptasia, and they would always follow each other including me around the tank. This may sound stupid, but I found them together in the same spot at the bottom of the tank. My tank seems so void of life now.

Thank you all again for your help, I will be buying some of those battery operated air pumps asap.

 

[nichols]

Plug in battery backups. http://www.bigalsonline.com/BigAlsUS/ctl3684/cp18280/cl0/airpumpsbatteryoperated?viewType=Category

 

[NateHanson]

16 % Oxygen & 84 % CO2 , I think I would not do it

Well, exhaled air is good enough to keep a human alive, through artificial respiration (mouth-to-mouth), so I'd expect it's good enough for the fish too.

Besides, the biggest component of air is always nitrogen. i think the atmosphere is almost 80% nitrogen, so you're definitely not blowing 86% CO2 into the tank. Probably just a couple percent at most.

- Here, I found one source online that lists the components of exhaled air as: 78% N2, 16% 02, 4% CO2, and 2% other stuff.

 

[littlep93056]

Well, exhaled air is good enough to keep a human alive, through artificial respiration (mouth-to-mouth), so I'd expect it's good enough for the fish too.

Besides, the biggest component of air is always nitrogen. i think the atmosphere is almost 80% nitrogen, so you're definitely not blowing 86% CO2 into the tank. Probably just a couple percent at most.

- Here, I found one source online that lists the components of exhaled air as: 78% N2, 16% 02, 4% CO2, and 2% other stuff.

So what would work better to save a fish
mouth to mouth or mouth to gill

 

[NateHanson]

So what would work better to save a fish
mouth to mouth or mouth to gill

Probably either way, but the trick is getting your other fish Red Cross trained and certified.

 

[Liam]

Well, exhaled air is good enough to keep a human alive, through artificial respiration (mouth-to-mouth), so I'd expect it's good enough for the fish too.

Besides, the biggest component of air is always nitrogen. i think the atmosphere is almost 80% nitrogen, so you're definitely not blowing 86% CO2 into the tank. Probably just a couple percent at most.

- Here, I found one source online that lists the components of exhaled air as: 78% N2, 16% 02, 4% CO2, and 2% other stuff.

you would not be able to sustain life like this,if you could how would someone suffocate
,does'nt mouth to mouth just kickstart the lungs rather than provide oxygen?

 

[NateHanson]

No, Mouth to mouth and CPR actually don't often kickstart anything. They're more often a way to keep oxygenated blood going to the brain until ALS can restore a normal heart rhythm (where's Don when we need him?!)

16% isn't great, but it's not a low enough oxygen environment to kill you. I don't entirely remember my fire training, but I seem to remember that 11% is lethal, and a few percent above that makes you unconscious, and a few above that makes you pretty stupid until you get out of it.

Anyways, I think it'd be a lot easier to pour a pitcher of water into the tank, making lots of bubbles, rather than blow into the tank with a straw. After about 3 minutes of that I'd probably pass out, collapse into the tank, and drown. And that's not something I'd want my fish to have to see.

 

[Aquadiva]

Hubby needed to resustitate our 29 gallon (ran out of batteries). While I was dashing to the store, he was doing the pitcher thing. When I came back he had switch to a collander. He decided that pouring the water through a collander would add more O2 than just dumping the water in.
I thought it was a pretty good idea.

 

[~Flighty~]

Is there a such thing as O2 tablets or did I dream that?

 

[Liam]

No, Mouth to mouth and CPR actually don't often kickstart anything. They're more often a way to keep oxygenated blood going to the brain until ALS can restore a normal heart rhythm (where's Don when we need him?!)

16% isn't great, but it's not a low enough oxygen environment to kill you. I don't entirely remember my fire training, but I seem to remember that 11% is lethal, and a few percent above that makes you unconscious, and a few above that makes you pretty stupid until you get out of it.

Anyways, I think it'd be a lot easier to pour a pitcher of water into the tank, making lots of bubbles, rather than blow into the tank with a straw. After about 3 minutes of that I'd probably pass out, collapse into the tank, and drown. And that's not something I'd want my fish to have to see.

i'd be dizzy after about 20 secs

 

[ReeferMedic]

That's about right, exhaled air is about 16% O2. Room air is about 21%. CPR is basically a way to keep some amount of oxygenated blood circulating to the brain and through the heart. CPR in itself doesn't save lives like you see on TV. It's the drugs and electricity that actually save/prolong lives, depending on how you look at it. Some of the drugs we used in the past would get a pulse out of raw hamburg. The discharge from hospital rate is much higher when bystander CPR is performed also. Getting back to the subject here, you definitely won't stay conscious very long blowing air through a straw. Get yourself a cheap air pump for the next emergency. Better yet, install a battery operated air pump that will come on when the electricity goes off. I have 6 of them that I bought last summer that I haven't installed yet. I think I just found something to do today.

 

[LockeOak]

16 % Oxygen & 84 % CO2 , I think I would not do it

No, air is 78% nitrogen, which is inhaled and exhaled without alteration. I don't know the levels of carbon dioxide in exhaled air, but it's less than 5%, considering the level in normal air is only 0.06%. The straw trick should work (so long as you don't pass out from the hyperventilation )