Keeping aquariums warm in the winter when no power

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fishb0ne

Aquarium Advice Activist
Joined
Jan 7, 2007
Messages
185
Location
Nebraska
Last winter when I didn't have any of my aquariums so this was hardly a concern, we were out of power one day for almost 20 hours. It also happened on several occasions that power went out for 3 or 4 hours at a time.

Of course, now having fish, the situation is very different.
I have the following:
-a 10 gallon, soon to be 20 gallon tank housing a dwarf gourami, 5 neons, plants, snails and shrimp
-a 10 gallon half-filled, housing a red claw crab
-a 75 gallon paludarium housing 8 fiddler crabs

My biggest concern is that 75g. It's housed in our basement where temps in the winter are 68*F to begin with. I keep it at a comfortable 78*F water and 73*F ambient by using a ceramic heater and (obviously) a 50w heater for the water part. The water part is 24 inches long by 16 inches wide and 6 inches tall. I'm only concerned about keeping the water warm.

How would you guys go about it? What I thought about is using candles. For the palludarium, I'd stick 3 or 4 in the sand and hopefully the crabs wouldn't ingest any. For the water part, and I'd do this for all tanks, I was thinking about using candles as well, placed in tall, narrow glasses weighted at the bottom. They would float upright, submerged in water enough to transfer heat from the candle to the glass, to the water.

Any other ideas? Help me out.

Also, what is the absolute minimum these critters would be able to tolerate:
-fiddlers
-red claw
-neons
-gourami
-snails, shrimp, plants

The main issue is that I don't know the exact Uca variety I have, which is something I seek to find out. I've read that they can widthstand temperatures as low as 40*F, but going lower spells fatal. For red claws I've read in several places that anything below 50*F can be fatal.
 
I had an idea regarding powering a tank's pump or filter during power cuts, and that was to use a computer UPS, but if they were to power a heater in a tank they may drain quickly so might not be suitable... :)

Another option that I read on here is to insulate the tank, using things like duvets, blankets and sleeping bags, basically anything that is usually used to keep things warm. Just wrap up the tank(s) and wrap the insulator with sticking tape (could be package tape, sellotape, duct tape), and your tanks shouldn't loose much heat when the heater is off... :D
 
Well, the APC UPS I have to power my server lasted me for 2 hours. The PC was eating about 60 watts worth of power.
Anywhoo, I do plan on insulating the bottom of the 75g. Right now there's absolutely nothing underneath it.
 
Wrapping the tank with blankets is going to be your best bet. You want a slow cool down and then a slow warmup. Sudden temperature changes really put stress on the fish.
 
fishb0ne said:
Well, the APC UPS I have to power my server lasted me for 2 hours. The PC was eating about 60 watts worth of power.
Anywhoo, I do plan on insulating the bottom of the 75g. Right now there's absolutely nothing underneath it.

It depends on which UPS you have, personally I have two, one a 90watt and the other I think 180watt. With an 11watt compact fluorescent light connected only, the 90w lasted a good few hours, so probably good for keeping a pump or filter of a similar wattage going, but for a heater, I wouldn't try the 90w with one, and the 180w may not last any longer either. So, unless you have a high wattage UPS it may not keep the power on for long if you have another 20 hour power loss this winter...

Insulating is a good idea, put some on the back too as the walls can be pretty cold so it probly would help stabilise the temperatures and reduce energy consumption from your heater... :)
 
I bought a backup power supply at the local hardware store. Using that sporadically (say 15 min each hour) on all my tanks (3) and covering them with blankets seems to work fine.
 
fishb0ne said:
The tank is in the middle of the room.
My APC UPS is a 500w one.

Well, being in the middle is good, and that UPS sounds like it should do the job ok, but for how long it would work, I don't really know, but it would keep the heat going while you wrap up the tank... :)
 
You can get a 1400W power box form automotive or camping supply store ($150 or so), that should last longer than a computer UPS.

I have seen a small RV generator on sale from Canadia Tire for $300 or so. Something like that would be your best bet if power failure is frequent. (But then, you would have to run the generator outdoors & run a long extension cord in .... a bit of a bother ...)

For several thousand dollars, you can get a generator that is wired to you house & will power up automatically so you never know you have a power out ... You need that if you live in the woods & power goes out for days at a time ..... <My inlaws has one of those unit, runs the entire house when power is down.>

Really low tech solution someone reported using in this forum a while ago: Insulate your tank (cover with blanklets, etc). Heat up some tank water with camp stove. Exchange the heated water with cooling water in your tank to keep tank from freezing. Repeat as needed ...... <Safety note, always run campstoves & heaters outdoors!.>
 
So far I like the power box idea the best, because the generators have to be run outdoors due to exhaust fumes.
I'll also look into generators for the entire house, 15000 watt ones can be had for $2000 from what I've seen.
 
I only use computer UPS' as I can get them for less than £20 at computer fairs, infact, my big one (actually 480watt, not 180, dunno where the 180 came from!!!) was only £10, and if I had another £10 at the time I could have had a second even higher watt one aswell, along with very sore arms!!! :mrgreen:

I would like a generator of somesort myself, but I just haven't got the money for one unfortunatly... :(

Now, building a wind turbine, that sounds like fun... :mrgreen:

http://www.velacreations.com/chispito.html
 
How about this cheap, possibly effective idea for my 75 gallon tank? It's on a stand and the stand doesn't really have a top, it's just a frame. Setting up a set of candles, maybe 3 at most, UNDER the tank, in a large bowl. Of course, I'd do some testing to make sure the flame is not too close to the bottom so that it could potentially damage the glass or cause overheating. As far as ambient temp inside the tank, ditto some candles in bowls so that crabs can't get to them.
 
Candles might work, but I think you will need a lot of them to heat up the entire room, so it would be cheaper to buy a powerbox.

I don't think you should enclosed the tank & insulate it, then use candles inside that to just heat up the tank. You wouldn't want the candles to use up all the O2 in the tank & kill your occupants by hypoxia ..... plus you don't know what fumes may be given off by candles inside an enclosed space like a small tank.
 
I had a two day outage last winter. Thankfully, I didn't keep my freshwater level up to the brim. So, as time went on, I would put in about a quart of hot water every hour or so until the water in my water tank got too cool for this to be feasible. In the first day, this wasn't bad. The temps remained in the 70's. Once I no longer had the hot water from my home's tank though, things went downhill quickly. Low 50's before the power came back on another day later.

Thankfully, all my fish just went into hibernation mode and they came out of it just fine. But then, I had very hardy fish in there to begin with.
 
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