Power Outage?

[warvillian]

So with all these tornado's and heavy storms what would be in your fish tank survival kit. For example, items needed in order to keep oxygen and water movement. Items that would help maintain power like a battery back up?

 

[Hinds04]

A generator. Can’t go wrong with one. You can use it for your house, tank, camping, etc. 1000 uses for one.

 

[adeian]

I have my pumps and heater on a 1500 Amp battery back up. The skimmer and power heads are on another one. I get about an hour on the pump and heater. I figure if it looks like it's going to be a long time til the powers back I've got about 2 hours to getto home depot and back with a generator.

 

[nxb161]

I 2nd the generator. I lost power before 9am on Thursday night, and monitored my 3 tanks yesterday. Thankfully the temp was close enough to the tanks that I wasn't worried there, but O2 levels..... I started by just occasionally stirring the tanks as quick as I could do whip some O2 into it. Next was I took a 35ML syringe and sucked up mostly saltwater, and sprayed it into the tank, just above the water line, and it shot micro bubbles through the tank. Maybe not the best to get stuck on some of the coral, but I had to do something. At 6pm (21hours later) I broke down and asked a neighbor to borrow their generator. My line was the only one on my street out, tap fuse blew out. I'm glad I did, didn't get the power back until 2am this morning. All fish and coral seem to be doing well. I'd have saved myself a lot of stress and hassle if I had my own generator, which is on the list to buy before year end.

 

[Purevil21]

Didn't have a generator before and got lucky when I lost power for three days, lost nothing using battery powered air pumps and hand mixing the water. DO NOT FEED if you have no power. If I had any kind of money tied up in a system from here out I would definitely have a generator to ensure I had no loses.

 

[Grizz]

At the very least get some battery powered air pumps Saved my 3 tanks last year got a genny now

 

[Purevil21]

Welcome to AA Grizz!

 

[Grizz]

Thanks m8

 

[Gti_Leo]

with a genorator you still have down time and what if you aren't home and dont catch the power outage then no startign the generator.

look into gettign a UPS (universal power supply) they are used for computers so you can shut them down or finish shomthing if theres a power outage. just get a large enough one and hook up a few pumps just to keep the water flowing. if the black out prolongs then look into renting a generator to keep the heaters and what not running

 

[leftyfish]

My fish get angry in the 10 second lag between the power going out and the house generator kicking on

 

[Ricksreef]

In my experience your reef tank can go without power for quite awhile unless it is during the winter where tank temperature can become an issue after a few hours.
That being said I purchased a generator this week myself.
In Virginia where I'm at we are in hurricane items tax free for seven days starting last Wednesday,so that helped.Generators under $1000.00 are tax exempt.

I just couldn't have the worry of power going out for a day or more and losing everything,plus the thought of no TV for that long LOL.

 

[nxb161]

quite a while is pretty vague, I know after 20hours my fish started to breathe heavy, and that was with some manually stirring to get some O2 in the water.

 

[Ricksreef]

Ok,I will try to be more specific.A tank that has the proper amount of live rock,filtration,and proper water movement and is not overstocked would last at least a workday period of 8 to 10 hour so you would be home to start a generator.
Consider fish and corals travel for days in a bag of water and survive,they go into a type of suspended animation I guess.
Naturally larger tanks would survive lover than nano's.

 

[nxb161]

Ok,I will try to be more specific.A tank that has the proper amount of live rock,filtration,and proper water movement and is not overstocked would last at least a workday period of 8 to 10 hour so you would be home to start a generator.
Consider fish and corals travel for days in a bag of water and survive,they go into a type of suspended animation I guess.
Naturally larger tanks would survive lover than nano's.

I agree with that, had no issues with any of the tanks w/o doing anything to them in that time period. after that I was getting nervous and started trying to manually agitate the water.

 

[Ricksreef]

At the least I would get a couple of those battery operated aquarium air pumps,I think Walmart sells them.