Emergency preparedness

[Hara]

Just a question to satisfy my paranoia...do you guys keep things like an extra water pump or any other equipment around? I guess that the pump is about the only thing that you cannot do without for very long..but tell me, what does your Emergency kit contain?

 

[Guest]

I keep a spare pump, it is a cheapy but 800gph and will work until I get the good one replaced. I also have battery backups incase of a power outage the PH's stay running.

 

[reefrunner69]

I have, lord knows how many, extra pumps. I have a battery operated air pump (looking into a generator, not for the tank, but cause we live in hurricaine alley), and that is about it. I always try to have water on hand incase of emergency as well.

 

[fishfreek]

One thing I want to get is either a small generator (neighors will love to have a lawn mower motor at full throttle all night). Or a large UPS battery backup system for my main circulation pump at the least icase of power outages.

 

[HoopsGuru]

One thing I want to get is either a small generator (neighors will love to have a lawn mower motor at full throttle all night). Or a large UPS battery backup system for my main circulation pump at the least icase of power outages.

I would definitely go with a small generator, there was a recent discussion between electronics "experts" on another forum and it was agreed that a UPS system would only buy but a few minutes of time before they ran out of power as well (consider pumps and heaters may have to run). The same was said for battery backups. A generator seems to be the best long term solution if heaters and pumps need to be run, for short term (and cheap!), battery powered airstones can keep oxygen levels adequate for as long as you have "D" cells.

*Disclaimer*--I suddenly realize that I have no "real" knowledge on the subject, thus believing me would be a leap of faith I suppose. I would gladly track down the topic again and post a link here if anyone would like to read and come to their own conclusions.

 

[reefrunner69]

If in a pinch, which I've been in before (caught without the D cells), you can simply surge your tank yourself. Siphon offf a few gallons and dump it back i the tank. Not real sure how long you can go without oxygenating the water, but I've done it every 15-30 min in a med stocked reef with no casualties.

 

[fishfreek]

Well I personly would not put my heaters on one. The reason is that a power outage would have to be for several hours before my tanks really would sufer from no heaters. The biggest thing I want to maintain is the water circulation.

Im not talking one of those baby ups devices either.

Im talking about high end battery backup equipment like what is used on servers and what not.

To get an idea of what size UPS one would need visit the following site. Enter in the total watts you want to keep and the desired time you want to keep it up and it will spec out a solution.

http://www.apc.com/template/size/express/index.cfm?temp_country=US

Of course a gas powered generator would be cheaper than this BUT gas powered generators do NOT start by themselves in a power outage thus they rely on you being there to get them ready, gas them up, plug them in to what ever you waint to maintan plus they are loud and for us city folk a nosy motor in the back yard at night is not gonna make you overly happy with the neighbors.

 

[HoopsGuru]

Of course a gas powered generator would be cheaper than this BUT gas powered generators do NOT start by themselves in a power outage thus they rely on you being there to get them ready, gas them up, plug them in to what ever you waint to maintan plus they are loud and for us city folk a nosy motor in the back yard at night is not gonna make you overly happy with the neighbors.

Around here, I would finally call that "payback" . Good point on it starting up on its own, with the amount of potentially money lost (not to mention parts of our fishy "families" in general) the monsters on that site could be a necessary investment.

 

[RogerMcAllen]

Share the love, power, and maybe they would warm up to the idea really quickly.

 

[cmor1701d]

At home I have an APC 1400 UPS to power the pump, power heads and heaters. It should give me a few hours of run time. Of course at work we have a much larger ups for all of our servers, and then we only have about 14 minutes of run time. It takes 9 seconds for the natural gas fired generator to come online and provide power to the server room (and a few other select offices, like mine). I don't think I can afford that set up at home.