Close Call

[danny zubot]

I've dodged a bullet in a big way today.

Last night around 10pm I was watching Lost in Space (ya I know but nothing else was on TV) and I noticed the living room was more silent than usual, and darker. The power didn't go out but a noticeable reduction in the light output of our lamps indicated to me that we weren't getting full power to out home.

I quickly turned off the TV and all but one lamp which was flickering by now and barely emitting any light what so ever. The tank was silent. I looked under the stand to see what was going on. All of the components were getting power, but not enough to actually run them. So I turned each one off one by one to just in the off chance that I might get one pump to work, nothing doing. My solution was to find an outlet somewhere else in the house that was running full power, and re-route the entire tank to it. I found one outlet thankfully, problem solved? I think not.

After an hour or so of speaking with other neighbors I found out that there was a power box behind our complex that exploded causing this strange power shortage. I didn't hear it because I had the movie cranked through my stereo of course. City worker were there working on it so I proceeded to go to bed, thinking that all would be well by morning. Wrong!
I'm not sure what time last night but I estimate around 1am they cut the power to the entire complex, leaving my half powered condo lifeless. I can tell you that it was the silence that woke me up around 2am, to discover my tank was again silent, and there was nothing I could do about it.

By the time I'd left for work this morning the power was still out, but thankfully there were no signs of death by either fish or corals, yet. Well. I got the phone call from my wife (meaning the power came back on) at around 10 am this morning. She isn't quite the expert on corals that we all are, but she knows what bleaching is. And she saw none, no dead fish either.

I guess the reef gods were shinning on me today.

Just thought I'd share.