Quick help. Power outage.

[lynxpilot]

If anybody has experience, I'd appreciate the scoop.

We just had tornadoes and high winds go through and power is out in the area. I'm on a small generator right now and shouldn't really run it continuously.

I have a 120 gallon aquarium with 1 blue tang, 1 yellow tang, 4 clowns, 1 wrasse, and a variety of corals.

How long can I go with power off before I have to really worry about losses?

I'd like to kill the generator when we go to bed tonight and re-start it first thing tomorrow morning. Likely be about 6 or 7 hours off.

Thanks a bunch for help.

 

[ryshark]

I think you will be fine with it being off for 6-7 hours. Think about when fish are shipped next day, it can take up to 24-hours. How cold is it there at night? If it is cold you may want to help insulate the tank by wrapping it with towels.

 

[lynxpilot]

Temps are no problem. Oxygen and flow (for the corals) is what I'm most worried about.

 

[Copepod]

Any chance you have a smaller aquarium or a friend does that you could use temporarily? I have heard people say they use a large plastic cooking spoon or something to slowly keep the water stirred. If you have a bubbler it will help get water to the top to exchange oxygen (it won't put oxygen in the tank though...I used to think it did and would put 4 stones bubbling on batteries.lol)

 

[ryshark]

If it is only 6-7 hours without flow/return water and your temp is good, I think you will be fine. You shouldn't have much loss if any, IMO.

 

[MichaelsLilGray]

how would someone with an aquarium be any help to him?.. it was a tornado.. it knocks out grids.. not houses lol

 

[Justin1989]

how would someone with an aquarium be any help to him?.. it was a tornado.. it knocks out grids.. not houses lol

Yes it does, however it depends on how bad it was, how many grids it could of knocked out and so forth. The question is still relevant.

Second, If you are worried, you could even wake up 3-4 hours, turn it on for 20 minutes or so to help out and turn it back off. It doesnt need continuous flow for them to thrive. it is used to keep nutrients in the water moving around and for the bacteria to break down the ammonia and so forth.

 

[AMDPhenomX4]

Why cant you run it continously? What about freezer/Fridge etc.

 

[melosu58]

You`ll be OK for 6 or 7 hours. Just when you get back up you`ll need to get the flow going anyway. Lighting you`ll be OK for for a few days.

 

[lynxpilot]

Well, I chickened out and ran the generator all night, hoping we'd get power back soon. When I went to town for supplies, one guy said he'd talked to someone from the electrical co-op and they said they didn't know when power would come back.

I bought oil filters and good oil for the generator so I could run it more or less continuous, and sure as heck the power comes back after only 28 or so hours of outage. I really lucked out. Our house is 100 percent electric, so we couldn't run the hot water heater or any big loads like that. I always have to save kW to run the well pump.

So, false alarm I guess. I sincerely thank all those who replied.

 

[nesamar22]

how would someone with an aquarium be any help to him?.. it was a tornado.. it knocks out grids.. not houses lol

question is relevant... put yourself in his shoes.... they should be fine, it would be the same if you were ordering fish or corals online, they will be without a light or heater for at least 9 hours. dont worry

 

[Ziggy953]

For future reference:

If you are running Koralia, tunze nano streams or any pump that pulls very little wattage you can run them off a car battery for a long time with a simple inverter. I have a spare car battery that I keep charged and ready to go in case of power outage. With the inverter I have I can run 2 tunze nano streams and 2 koralia 2s for well over 12 hours. I'm sure they can run longer then that but that is the longest I have tested them. Inverters aren't too expensive and can be picked up at walmart or any store like that.

 

[ryshark]

For future reference:

If you are running Koralia, tunze nano streams or any pump that pulls very little wattage you can run them off a car battery for a long time with a simple inverter. I have a spare car battery that I keep charged and ready to go in case of power outage. With the inverter I have I can run 2 tunze nano streams and 2 koralia 2s for well over 12 hours. I'm sure they can run longer then that but that is the longest I have tested them. Inverters aren't too expensive and can be picked up at walmart or any store like that.

This reminds me of the battery backup for the Vortech, I think I should pick one up just in case.

 

[thincat]

Quote"This reminds me of the battery backup for the Vortech, I think I should pick one up just in case."
I thought that Vortech won't lower itself (pun intended) to 12v's.....
Just kidding.....
Great to here that your power is back on.

 

[Justin1989]

I understand you would be worried, I would be to. Back a few years ago we had an ice storm here and lost power for about 4 days. Running generators full-time is hard on them, causing heat issues and so forth. Freezers/refrigerators can hold stable temps for around 4-6 hours which is why you can run the generator for a while on those then turning it off. A problem we had was people stealing generators and selling them. We locked up ours every night.

Also Ziggy has a very good point.

 

[Kurt_Nelson]

If you don't want to mess with batteries and inverters, try this in one nice package...

Xantrex Technology Inc. - Mobile Office - PowerSource 400 - Product Information

I have one for "short term" outages. Keeps the heaters/pumps running during those hour long outages in the middle of the night.

 

[thincat]

Yes, I run something like that for my computer and AQ.
It is connected to one of my Koralia pumps.