Planted Tank Guru
Join Date: Jan 2010
Location: Contra Costa CA
Posts: 11,721
There is also this:
The guy doing daily water changes on his rift lake tank cannot go away, or has to hire a water change person when he goes on vacation.
Next:
What happens when the power fails?
Filters and pumps do not run. CO2 accumulates. O2 levels drop. Beneficial bacteria dies. Anaerobic bacteria starts to grow in the filter.
Heater fails. This may not be as much of a problem if the power failure is in the summer, but what about the winter? As the house cools off we can put on a sweater, but it is hard to keep the water in the tank warm!
Lights fail. So any benefits from the plants are not going to happen if they are dependent on the lighting. Not many tanks are so close to a window that the window light is enough to grow the plants, and besides, many power failures happen during storms that are dark, cloudy weather.
In the summer, AC fails. If you are in a very warm place you are probably depending on the AC to keep the tank at least somewhat cool.
An overstocked tank will have almost immediate problems when the power fails.
An understocked tank will take a lot longer for some of these problems to surface.
In this case, the 1" of fish per gallon of water guide is pretty useful for small fish. It is a pretty decent guide for the CO2 and ammonia production and O2 needs of community fish. Go over that limit and the tank can crash a lot faster.
Beautiful Plec! Awesome sail, and nice color pattern!