I leave you alone and look what happens...

[DLHDesign]

This is, of course, how it happens. We leave on a short weekend trip (to Disneyland, of course) and as soon as we're 6hrs on the road, I get a message that my Apex is offline. We confirm with neighbors that, indeed, the power is out all over the neighborhood. About 45min later, PG&E calls to inform us that we have an outage (thanks - knew that...) and that it should be repaired in a few hours (9:45pm PST)

It's now been a few hours (it's 10pm PST). Power is still off. PG&E thinks - maybe - midnight. Perhaps.

And the icing on the whole thing is that we're getting a quote for the install of a whole-house battery to plug into our solar system next week. A week ago, I nearly pulled the trigger on a battery backup for one of the Gyre's, but did not because of that... **sigh**

I've had the tank totally off for ~2hrs before during a (rather painful) water change and things seemed to do okay. Here's to hoping that it can survive 6+hrs of no power... :-(

 

[Frop]

This is, of course, how it happens. We leave on a short weekend trip (to Disneyland, of course) and as soon as we're 6hrs on the road, I get a message that my Apex is offline. We confirm with neighbors that, indeed, the power is out all over the neighborhood. About 45min later, PG&E calls to inform us that we have an outage (thanks - knew that...) and that it should be repaired in a few hours (9:45pm PST)

It's now been a few hours (it's 10pm PST). Power is still off. PG&E thinks - maybe - midnight. Perhaps.

And the icing on the whole thing is that we're getting a quote for the install of a whole-house battery to plug into our solar system next week. A week ago, I nearly pulled the trigger on a battery backup for one of the Gyre's, but did not because of that... **sigh**

I've had the tank totally off for ~2hrs before during a (rather painful) water change and things seemed to do okay. Here's to hoping that it can survive 6+hrs of no power... :-(

:/

 

[Flippers4pups]

Can a family member come over to the house and at least stir the water?

 

[USMC 4 LIFE]

You should be alright. I've had my tank offline for 4 hours once. Nothing bad came from it.

 

[DLHDesign]

Can a family member come over to the house and at least stir the water?

Only family that lives close to us are in the room next door...

Our neighbor is schedule to check/feed the tank tomorrow late afternoon. She knows little about fish tanks, but at least there will be some eyes on it. And if nothing comes out to eat, I'm sure that she'll let me know.

In addition to the Apex probes, I've also got a SenEye in there. So when everything comes back on, I'll be able to check not only Ph and temp, but also ammonia levels. Doesn't help me DO anything, but at least I'll have some idea...

You should be alright. I've had my tank offline for 4 hours once. Nothing bad came from it.

Thanks; here's to hoping I get the same result.

 

[5altkreep]

Good luck. Hope everything works out ok.

 

[AllSignsPointToFish]

That sucks, man. I'm really sorry to hear this. Hope everything turns out okay.

 

[AllSignsPointToFish]

Get that whole-house system installed. Automate as much as possible, and invest in a competent neighbor or friend

 

[Clarksski]

I think you'll be ok as long as the outage isn't too long.. few hours in this mild climte and you should be ok...did you say PG&E?.. you can get updates on the expected power outage from their website. Usually the blackouts aren't too long....
I know how anxious it makes you feel though...
I'd like to know what kind of solar battery back-up you're getting.. I think I need one too.

 

[Rick.45cal]

Oh man

 

[DLHDesign]

New ETA is 2:30am. It's a "soft" ETA, which means that they don't yet know what the problem is...

I'd like to know what kind of solar battery back-up you're getting.. I think I need one too.

It's a Tesla Powerwall 2. When we installed our solar system, we chose an inverter that specifically was compatible with the Powerwall 1. I'm only hoping that the series 2 connects in the same way since they aren't selling the gen 1 any more, of course...

 

[Clarksski]

Hmmm... I still think you'll be ok... I lost power once from 5pm to 5 am.. I did have a janky battery op airline diffuser that I put in tank.. temp dropped a bit...I, personally, didn't sleep a wink that night but fish and corals were fine... I look back at it as a cold night on the reef...but honestly, in the cali mild climate, you should be ok...as long as the outage is not for too long...

 

[RDA]

Hopefully they get you guys back up and running soon. Hopefully everything survives just fine. That's terrible timing.

 

[Clarksski]

It's a Tesla Powerwall 2. When we installed our solar system, we chose an inverter that specifically was compatible with the Powerwall 1. I'm only hoping that the series 2 connects in the same way since they aren't selling the gen 1 any more, of course...[/QUOTE]
I def need one of these batteries... would be nice to bank excess power into battery instead of selling back to pge for pennies on the dollar...

 

[DLHDesign]

Just got a call from a technician that PG&E sent out to check up on the place. The house does, in fact, have power. He can hear a splashing in the backyard - which would be the pump on the turtle/fish pond.

My best guess is that the power came back on, but the modem or router needs a power cycle in order to reconnect to the internet. I'm going to assume that the Apex (and SenEye) came back on, because otherwise I'm not sleeping tonight...

would be nice to bank excess power into battery instead of selling back to pge for pennies on the dollar...

That's the thinking, yeah. The thing will cost about $7k installed and carries a 10yr warranty. I think we pay PG&E about $0.13 per kWh and they pay us $0.03 per extra kWh that we produce (or something). Our system over-performs during an average day by a good amount (benefit of a self-install is that you can go above the 110-115% limits that other installers use), so I am pretty sure we could charge it full each day on average. I'm hoping that we can charge it during the day then use it at night, and never have to pay PG&E for power again. We won't go off-grid or anything, but at least we'll be protected from things like this...

 

[DLHDesign]

AND a friend down the street is going to head over to check on the tank. Yay for good friends nearby!

 

[DLHDesign]

OH GOOD. Tank looks to be running fine. Neighbors are starting to weigh in on FB that power has been on for some time now, so the modem/router issue is almost certainly the cause. Friend is now rebooting everything, so we'll see if it comes back online...

Even if not, I'm not really worried about it. The tank has been stable enough that I'm not overly concerned about not being able to "see" it. Still; would be nice...

 

[DLHDesign]

Rebooting the modem and router didn't bring anything back online, but there's a network hub down in the back of the tank. Not going to have the friend (tech savvy though he is) go digging around inside my wiring mess to reboot that, so calling it.

So; to recap/wrap this up:

My (your) tank is only as safe as your weakest redundant component. Sometimes that redundancy means having a person you can call on in the wee hours of the night. And sometimes, it means making sure that even things like modems, routers, and network hubs all have a battery backup on them...

 

[Breadman03]

I saw an announcement that their new solar tiles will go up for order soon, as well. I've been holding off on doing my roof in hopes that they are affordable.

 

[DLHDesign]

Update:
Turns out that the power was out for only a few minutes - not hours. I could tell this because one of my old clocks was off by 4 minutes. Everything was perfectly fine once I reset the hub under the cabinet.
The only things "off" on the tank were that the skimmer went crazy and the filter socks were full. Both of which were to be expected since I didn't try to have the person feeding the tank put it into "feed" mode when she fed it while we were out.

So - yay!