Pacific Gas & Electric power outage in Northern CA affecting your reef tank?

[ddrueckh]

Getting ready for another outage later today. I have to say that it sure is nice having a Trident. It checks my levels and auto adjusts dosing to bring the values back to where they should be when power comes back on. With no lights, consumption goes down and values go up. I might just turn my dosers off when I don’t have power for lights. My generator keeps the pumps and heaters going, but is not powerful enough to run the lighting with everything else I run in the house.

 

[DivingTheWorld]

Getting ready for another outage later today. I have to say that it sure is nice having a Trident. It checks my levels and auto adjusts dosing to bring the values back to where they should be when power comes back on. With no lights, consumption goes down and values go up. I might just turn my dosers off when I don’t have power for lights. My generator keeps the pumps and heaters going, but is not powerful enough to run the lighting with everything else I run in the house.

Yeah, lights suck a lot! I ordered a larger generator since I was having some similar issues with my lights. Sunday I just ended up turning off all the lights and both dosers and just manually tested.

 

[Bob Weigant]

Yeah, lights suck a lot! I ordered a larger generator since I was having some similar issues with my lights. Sunday I just ended up turning off all the lights and both dosers and just manually tested.

Geez Mike Im super old school. I manually dose. So far we are untouched

 

[brianbigoats]

Glad I do not have PG&E no black outs in Lodi

 

[Dave Cureton]

Power is back up again for us. Hoping this was the last outage for a long time. My poor acros are super pale. Hoping they pull through.

 

[Injoynit]

Well, back yesterday after 4 days away from tank.
The positive is my house never lost power even though we were in a mandatory evacuation zone.
The negative, my reservoir ran out of water Sunday which gave me Monday and some of Tuesday before I had to turn off return pump and heater.
So I watched the apex temp go down to 61 degrees!! House had no gas so heater did not work.
When I got home a day later the fish were still alive and after today I have no deaths of fish or corals.
I did leave the lights on on the tank since they put out some heat and I had the 2 apex power heads running for a little more heat and air. Not sure if the 200 gal size helped but was stunned they could survive at that low a temp.

I have a generator, but that does not help when they kick you out! ;Jawdrop

 

[Ethirtysix]

Well came back home Thursday night they ended up turning off power and gas. Lost all my fish

 

[Dave Cureton]

Sorry to hear it. Did you happen to have a battery backup air pump on the tank? My tanks got down to 60* and the fish survived. I’m assuming it was due to the air pumps.

 

[Ethirtysix]

I did have it on but I only ran for 2 days and it was 2.5 days after it died that the power came back on witch was enough to deplete the oxygen. I will now figure out a better system so when incase of another Evacuation. The worst part is my daughter was completely devastated about the fish. We have gotten 2 new clowns in qt so she’s happier now

 

[Sean Norman]

I put in a whole house generator- 11KW from Generac. I have a separate 250 gallon propane tank that feeds it. Six seconds after the power goes off, it fires up. Really nice to not have to worry about the tank or anything else...

 

[RandyC]

I put in a whole house generator- 11KW from Generac. I have a separate 250 gallon propane tank that feeds it. Six seconds after the power goes off, it fires up. Really nice to not have to worry about the tank or anything else...

If you don't mind me asking, what's something like that cost with installation?

 

[Ethirtysix]

If you don't mind me asking, what's something like that cost with installation?

Generator can cost anywhere from 5,000 to 20,000 or even more install can be from a few thousand anywhere to 10,000 depending on the work involved. Best way is with a auto transfer switch so it’ll switch automatically when detects power shuts off and generator will automatically kick on and when power turns back on the generator will turn off and resume from power company so you’ll never have to worry about back feeding back to the grid witch can turn real ugly. Manuel transfer switches are good too.

 

[Ethirtysix]

I put in a whole house generator- 11KW from Generac. I have a separate 250 gallon propane tank that feeds it. Six seconds after the power goes off, it fires up. Really nice to not have to worry about the tank or anything else...

Would love one, Just not in my budget right now

 

[Ethirtysix]

If you don't mind me asking, what's something like that cost with installation?

If your interested in one or connecting your existing generator to a manual transfer switch to power a few circuits depending where you live I can help with the install or any advice for a diy. I’m a electrician

 

[Sean Norman]

If you don't mind me asking, what's something like that cost with installation?

I got the generator for $3200 from Norwall Power System on line. I did some of the install, and had an electrician do the hook up. It cost about $1800 for the electrical work. If you can locate the generator near your main panel, it helps.

 

[Sean Norman]

I got the generator for $3200 from Norwall Power System on line. I did some of the install, and had an electrician do the hook up. It cost about $1800 for the electrical work. If you can locate the generator near your main panel, it helps.

That came with the Gen/Trans switch .

 

[RandyC]

I got the generator for $3200 from Norwall Power System on line. I did some of the install, and had an electrician do the hook up. It cost about $1800 for the electrical work. If you can locate the generator near your main panel, it helps.

Thanks for the info. I'm actually surprised at the cost; for some reason I had made up in my head it would cost a lot more. Time to do more research, this may need to be in the plan for 2020.