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

[CyberGuy]

Is anyone in here having power outage due to Pacific Gas & Electric shutting down electrical power as a precaution to wild fires? Any back up plans for your aquarium?
I guess Ecotech battery back up and generators are needed at this time.

 

[Ebslinger]

I picked up an Ecotech battery for my powerheads a few months ago just for this reason. I think I'm ready... hoping at least.

 

[RandyC]

I have 1500W I can draw from solar panels during the day (hopefully it stays sunny) when my inverter loses connection to the grid and I'm keeping my fingers crossed that delivery from Amazon actually happens today for my 3400W dual fuel generator. My downtime is expected to start at noon.

I also have a bunch of Cobalt Aquatics USB battery air pumps and Penn Plax battery air pumps just in case.

 

[Dr. Dendrostein]

Is anyone in here having power outage due to Pacific Gas & Electric shutting down electrical power as a precaution to wild fires? Any back up plans for your aquarium?
I guess Ecotech battery back up and generators are needed at this time.

Im Socal, but have an inverter 4500 watts continuous use hook up to car. In case , the day it happens here , which it will

 

[MichaelReefer]

Is anyone in here having power outage due to Pacific Gas & Electric shutting down electrical power as a precaution to wild fires? Any back up plans for your aquarium?
I guess Ecotech battery back up and generators are needed at this time.

I'm lucky and am just out of the shutoff zone.

 

[Stoney]

My power's supposed to go out any minute now. Got a 2000 watt generator and a bunch of d cells for my battery air pumps. Also insulated the crap out of the tanks. Yes tanks, I've got 4 to worry about, but only one that absolutely can't crash. Does anyone know how long a tank can be blacked out for? Seems like 3 days is fine but if anything happens to the generator, 5-7 days is a long time. Surprised this thread isn't more active, there's got to be thousands of reefers in the bay area affected by this.

 

[RandyC]

My power's supposed to go out any minute now. Got a 2000 watt generator and a bunch of d cells for my battery air pumps. Also insulated the crap out of the tanks. Yes tanks, I've got 4 to worry about, but only one that absolutely can't crash. Does anyone know how long a tank can be blacked out for? Seems like 3 days is fine but if anything happens to the generator, 5-7 days is a long time. Surprised this thread isn't more active, there's got to be thousands of reefers in the bay area affected by this.

no timetable for second phase shutdown as the winds apparently haven’t materialized like they thought they would. Some have even had power restored.

PG&E delays second phase of power shut-off: 'The strong winds haven't shown up yet'

A change in the weather has led Pacific Gas & Electric to delay the second phase of a power shut-off to mitigate wildfire risk amid dry, windy conditions in California.

m.sfgate.com

.

 

[Sailfinguy21]

Ah california... you guys have it rough..

 

[RandyC]

Ah california... you guys have it rough..

Most of our problems are driven by bureaucrats and our constant whining. But we still have our sun and mostly year round good weather. Nothing like hurricanes or tornadoes to worry about or deal with every year. We only have a date for a big earthquake that is a couple decades late.

 

[Stoney]

I know it was delayed from noon to 8, but are you sure it's officially delayed again? The article says:

Residents of the East Bay and South Bay were originally scheduled to lose power starting at noon Wednesday, but the timing got pushed back thanks to a shift in the weather forecast

How's that generator btw, you fire it up? I ran mine for 15 minutes and it seemed fine but I'm paranoid that it's a lemon.

 

[Stoney]

Don't remind me, It's looking grim enough already lol. That earthquake's been in the back of my mind too.

 

[Sailfinguy21]

Don't remind me, It's looking grim enough already lol. That earthquake's been in the back of my mind too.

Hopefully nothing happens with that lol

 

[RandyC]

I know it was delayed from noon to 8, but are you sure it's officially delayed again? The article says:



How's that generator btw, you fire it up? I ran mine for 15 minutes and it seemed fine but I'm paranoid that it's a lemon.

I'm pretty sure it’s delayed as I still have power an hour after it was supposed to be turned off! Generator fired up and ran fine on propane. So I’m ready to go if it does actually happen. It’s a little louder than I imagined it would be, but this is my first generator. I should have taken that 56dB in the spec sheet with a grain of salt.

 

[Injoynit]

I too am just outside the current power shut off.
I have a 12 kilowatt DuroMax portable generator that is duel fuel and ready to run the all of the tank and the fridge and if needed a ton of other things that plug into an extension cord. Don't have it configured to plug into the house grid yet...next year.
If the generator was not so loud I would probably boycott PG&E for a week even if I had to pay more in gas/propane. They should do their job. If I wanted to live in a 3rd world country it would be WAY cheaper then California!
Annnyywayyy... good luck to all who have to deal with this.

 

[flagg37]

I'm pretty sure it’s delayed as I still have power an hour after it was supposed to be turned off! Generator fired up and ran fine on propane. So I’m ready to go if it does actually happen. It’s a little louder than I imagined it would be, but this is my first generator. I should have taken that 56dB in the spec sheet with a grain of salt.

How long is it supposed to run off of one tank of propane?

 

[RandyC]

How long is it supposed to run off of one tank of propane?

14.5 hours at 25% load with 20lb tank.

This is the one I got:

Champion 3400-Watt Dual Fuel RV Ready Portable Inverter Generator with Electric Start

 

[flagg37]

14.5 hours at 25% load with 20lb tank.

This is the one I got:

Champion 3400-Watt Dual Fuel RV Ready Portable Inverter Generator with Electric Start

Do any generators have the ability to sense when the outage happens and kick on itself so you don’t have to get up in the middle of the night to turn it on? I guess you’d still have to switch over all the plugs unless you could hook it up to your panel to power your whole house.

 

[RandyC]

They have whole house generators that run off of natural gas and propane. I think those start around $5-6k installed.

 

[User1]

Up North and have Solar but SMUD is main power.

We have car accidents mowing down power lines, starting fires, then taking another line down, all of which causes a surge into our neighborhood 3x the normal amount wrecking havoc in our community. Every breaker in the main panel tripped - true story 3 weeks back. I would have preferred a "known" outage.

Damaged 2 refrigerators, dishwasher, solar inverter, toaster, thermostat, AC, electric tea pot (what the heck is a Irishman supposed to do with no teapot!!!!), and a few other things. I'm not sure what utility company in Ca is more inept... And let us not even bring up ENRON...

Hope you are all fairing well.

 

[RandyC]

They have whole house generators that run off of natural gas and propane. I think those start around $5-6k installed.

@flagg37 here’s a Honeywell generator you can get from Costco.

https://www.costco.com/Honeywell-20KW-Standby-Generator-with-Transfer-Switch.product.100466089.html