My fish survived a winter storm without heat.

[Jay Norris]

My goal this week is to research generators and inverters. Looks we have another round of snow coming this weekend.

Yes that would be a good idea, since it seems you live in an area where you could lose power for an extended period of time. I have a whole house generator , and would never be without one, as I live in South Florida, but not everyone needs a large generator. I do like my aquarium, central A/C, TV, and everything else that we use on a daily basis, and it's so easy to use, as all we have to do his turn the power off from the street with a manual transfer switch and turn on the power from the generator. I use the manual transfer switch down here , so I can control when the power comes back on, as I do not want the generator running in a severe hurricane.

 

[Skibum]

Hey reefers! Today marks 1 day after power was restored. I waited to post this just incase something else bad happened. On Friday my my small city in Missouri had a bad snow storm come through. Adding 14 inches of snow over night. Around noon on Saturday the electricity went out, effecting over 100,000 homes and buisnesses. At first I thought it was a short outage but after 4 hours, I began to worry. My biggest worry was my 30 gallon tank.

Please ignore the dirty glass and the cyano. This was my most recent picture of the tank from maybe 2 or 3 weeks ago.


My other worry was my 14g freshwater tank.


Sometimes we think we have covered all aspects of what could go wrong during emergencies but is it enough?

My 30g has a 900w APC brand UPS connected to it. Its my battery backup if power is out. I have a 30w return pump and a 30w jebao pp-4 for circulation. Since it was cold in the house I intermittently used my 150w Finnex heater. This allowed my tank 5.5 hours of run time without lights.

Unfortunately, the power outage lasted 24 hours in total. The ambient temp in the house fell to 51 degs. On Saturday after the UPS ran out of juice, it was up to me to keep the tank going. I don't want to get into the other issues involved with being snowed in. One being food for myself. Apparently, my disgust for junk food nipped me in the butt as without power, I can't cook anything. All I had was hot water provided by a gas powered water heater. No fireplace, no wood stove. I had to make a trip to the grocery store by foot. Luckily only 3 blocks away.

Anyway, back to the tanks. So, how did I keep my 30g going? I used water bottles that I filled with hot, skin burning, water. I worked tirelessly in the dark with only a few candles lit, switching out and filling bottles every 30 minutes. I would then circulate the water with a ladle. Around 9pm that evening, i accidentally fell asleep. I didn't wake up until 8am the next day. That was nearly 12 hours later. I woke up crying think it would be impossible for any life in the tank to survive. Regardless, and before looking in the tank, I filled water bottles. I switched them out every 10 minutes. Then every 30 minutes. The thermometer was reading 56 degs. The fish laying on the sand started moving after 40 minutes of changing bottles out. I couldn't believe it.

It's Monday now and all 7 of my fish are accounted for. 12 hours of stagnant cold water and these little guys are back to normal. My coral appear alive as well. I still can't believe how everything pulled through. Anyway, thats my little 24 hours of mental torcher.

I had something similar happen when I was living in Breckenridge last year. A snowplow slid straight into a power pole, knocking out power all over Baldy mountain. This was in March which is still winter up there. Temp in the house dropped to 35 degrees. The water in the tank dropped to 51. No UPS, No Circulation just a blanket over the top of everything. Power was out for over 16 hours. I lost a kole tang and a couple of frags. I was able to keep most of my inverts, corals, YT, clown and dragonet survived. I was surprised anything lived at all ;-). These creatures are tougher than we give them credit for.

 

[mkwarner77]

glad to hear about your tank. Mine didn't fair to well back in november. Ice storm took out power took 3 days to get back. lost all fish and 1/2 my corals.

 

[mkwarner77]

glad to hear about your tank. Mine didn't fair to well back in november. Ice storm took out power took 3 days to get back. lost all fish and 1/2 my corals.

 

[mkwarner77]

My tank didn't fair to well back in November, major ice storm knocked out power for 3 1/2 days. tank dropped to 45 deg. lost all fish and 1/2 the coral. shockingly the hammer, 2 zoas and star polyp are recovering

 

[mkwarner77]

oops, sorry for multi post, puter got stupid.

 

[jd371]

Glad everything worked out for you. My tank has been up and running for over 3 years now, last year I finally invested in a generator for peace of mind.

 

[BryanD]

I had one last 3 days in late October, about 6 years ago. Luckily I have gas stove, I would remove about a gallon of water at a time, warm it up to 80ish on the stove, then pour it back in the tank. For 3 days .... Had a 2 pieces of montipora, each the size of a dinner plate, that died down, one to a piece about the size of a dime, other the size of a quarter. Cut them out and saved them both, now its back to being 2 dinner plates again.

Bought a generator about 2 weeks later, LOL.

 

[gcrawford]

Thanks for sharing your story, you did quite well! One word of advice for those that do have gasoline powered generators - be sure to drain your fuel each year and your carburetor bowl if you can. (or let it run until it runs out of gas) Mine had clogged after sitting for two years even though I cranked it up every once in a while. Old gas will keep you from being able to use your generator eventually if you don't follow a maintenance regimen. After rebuilding my carburetor, my generator now runs normally.

 

[jp_75]

glad your tanks survived.
my first purchase after I bought the tank....

if i can ask how much generac costs these days? my plan for summer....

 

[4FordFamily]

Thanks for the thread, it nudged me to fire up my generator yesterday (had been a long, long time it needed to run) and started charging my backup battery!

 

[pickupman66]

I run my suitcase generator monthly. uses only 100% gasoline in it. the big one gets run every 2 months and the carb is ran dry.

always exercise a generator regularly so it stays in good condition.

 

[reeferfoxx]

My tank didn't fair to well back in November, major ice storm knocked out power for 3 1/2 days. tank dropped to 45 deg. lost all fish and 1/2 the coral. shockingly the hammer, 2 zoas and star polyp are recovering

Sorry to hear about that! I couldn't imagine

 

[reeferfoxx]

I had one last 3 days in late October, about 6 years ago. Luckily I have gas stove, I would remove about a gallon of water at a time, warm it up to 80ish on the stove, then pour it back in the tank. For 3 days .... Had a 2 pieces of montipora, each the size of a dinner plate, that died down, one to a piece about the size of a dime, other the size of a quarter. Cut them out and saved them both, now its back to being 2 dinner plates again.

Bought a generator about 2 weeks later, LOL.

I wish I had a gas stove lol

But ya, a generator would be a god send that this point. This is the worst I've seen it here in 23 years. Knowing my luck i would never need the generator but peace of mind out weighs the odds.

 

[showmebutterfly]

If you get a whole house generator, check with your insurance, as having one might get you a discount on your insurance.

 

[andyg1960]

wow-- glad your tank is coming back

 

[KenO]

I was living in NJ when Sandy hit. We were lucky we never lost power even though everyone around us lost power. I didn’t have to use my small 5500W generator, but one thing I did with my generator was I had convertered it to run on natural gas. I can’t remember the place where I got the kit from, I had done a search online. It was simple to do, plus I was still able to run the generator on regular gas if I had to. Running on NG the generator ran quieter and cleaner. You didn’t have to change the oil like you do if you run it on gasoline. I also installed a power disconnect on my main power panel. I had a 30A twist plug outlet on my house that I could plug the generator into. I was able to disconnect the main breaker and there was a lockout to keep you from running street power and generator power at the same time. So I was able to select which circuit breakers in my panel I could turn on/off. So besides my tanks I could power my fridge for awhile and lights. A whole house generator is still the better way to go, but at the time this worked for me. For my new house I’ve been looking at some of the generator packages that Costco has. Some include the transfer panel with the generator.

 

[saltyfilmfolks]

Holy smokes Fox!

That’s nuts! Sorry ya had to through that. Mind bending to say the least.

I’m soooo you , and the tanks made it .

 

[reeferfoxx]

Holy smokes Fox!

That’s nuts! Sorry ya had to through that. Mind bending to say the least.

I’m soooo you , and the tanks made it .

Thanks Jason! The tank has recovered well. My monti cap and goni have struggled a little with color loss and lack of polyp extension but a little nutrient dosing and GAC is showing promis

 

[Matt Carden]

That is so awesome that you were able to save everything in your tank!