Planned power outage

[SuncrestReef]

EDIT on 7/18/2018: The power event has already passed, so no need for additional advice on this thread. All worked out, see post #13 for details.

My electric utility company is doing a lot of work in my neighborhood to replace power poles and wires. Today I received a notice in the mail that they will be shutting off the power to my neighborhood next Monday for up to 4 hours, sometime between 8am - 3pm. They can't give an exact time. Monday's weather forecast is for 93 degrees, so I'm concerned that my tank will heat up quickly without the air conditioning working in the house, plus I won't have any flow in the tank once my UPS runs out of backup power after about 20 minutes.

I'm pretty new to the hobby, my tank is only 3 months old, so I'm not sure how much to worry about this. Will 4 hours without power be a major risk, or no problem? I have a Reefer XL 425 with only 6 fish, 2 shrimp, 14 corals, 1 anemone, and a cleanup crew. I can turn off the LED lights, UV sterilizer, and refugium pump to conserve power so the UPS might last a little longer, but I still don't think it will run more than 20 - 30 minutes on UPS power.

Any suggestions?

 

[Crimsonphoenix]

My electric utility company is doing a lot of work in my neighborhood to replace power poles and wires. Today I received a notice in the mail that they will be shutting off the power to my neighborhood next Monday for up to 4 hours, sometime between 8am - 3pm. They can't give an exact time. Monday's weather forecast is for 93 degrees, so I'm concerned that my tank will heat up quickly without the air conditioning working in the house, plus I won't have any flow in the tank once my UPS runs out of backup power after about 20 minutes.

I'm pretty new to the hobby, my tank is only 3 months old, so I'm not sure how much to worry about this. Will 4 hours without power be a major risk, or no problem? I have a Reefer XL 425 with only 6 fish, 2 shrimp, 14 corals, 1 anemone, and a cleanup crew. I can turn off the LED lights, UV sterilizer, and refugium pump to conserve power so the UPS might last a little longer, but I still don't think it will run more than 20 - 30 minutes on UPS power.

Any suggestions?

Freeze some water bottles and add one to your tank if it gets too warm.

 

[SuncrestReef]

Freeze some water bottles and add one to your tank if it gets too warm.

Unfortunately I have a board meeting on Monday that I can't miss, so I won't be home to monitor the temperature or add a frozen bottle if needed.

 

[60CubeReefer]

Pick up a generator and a fan. Hook your tank up to generator power, top off the gas--should run you a good 8 hours. Hope the fan gives you enough evaporative cooling to keep temps under 84.

 

[Porpoise Hork]

Set your A/C to 68-70f the night before and lower the tank temp to 76f. Pull the main pump and heater off the battery backup and connect it and the battery powered air pumps to a surge strip that's connected to the wall directly. Get a couple battery powered air pumps that connect to wall voltage. These units are designed to automatically kick on in the event the 110v cuts off. You also probably want to get a couple air pump sponge filters. Connect the battery backup pumps to them and place them so they are spaced apart from one another on the bed. When the power cuts out the air pumps will kick on and start pumping water creating some level of circulation as well as break the surface for gas exchange.


By doing this, you provide a longer time period for the inside house temp to get too hot, and the tank temp will take much longer to get to the danger point. The air pumps will circulate the tank to some degree and keep things alive. Then when power is restored the main pump will kick on and resume full circulation. The A/C will kick on and pull the air and water temp down and if the it goes below 76f the heater will kick on and keep it there. Then when you get home remove the air sponge filters and move the main pump and heater back to their normal connections.


As 60Cube mentioned, you can pick up a 1KV 2cycle generator for around $130 that will easily run for 8-9 hours and run an extension cord to the tank setup.

 

[Salty.Reefer]

I would buy a generator. If you plan on staying in the hobby, the generator will pay for itself 10 fold. I have only had mine (a Honda eu2000i) for 2 years and have used it many times already. I would hook a fan up to it and point it over the top of the water. As long as you have a working ATO, it won’t hurt the tank at all.
The generator is super useful outside the hobby too!
Good luck!!

 

[Crabs McJones]

Agreed with picking up a generator. Doesn't have to be anything big and high priced. A planned power outage is one thing, but a power outage due to a storm, automobile accident, or squirrel in the transformer, you'll be glad you've got a generator on hand

 

[JaimeAdams]

I wouldn't really even sweat a 4 hour outage. As said just drop the temp in your house prior to the outage. A couple battery air pumps and you are good to go and turn off the lights if they are not low powered LEDs.

 

[ZachH455]

If you can't be there when the power is out I'd get a generator. If you can find someone to be there, having frozen water bottles sounds like a good idea, and aeration is important as well. I'd scoop water out and pour it back in every couple of minutes to avoid available oxygen getting depleted. In all likelihood it will be fine, but why take an unnecessary risk?

 

[Porpoise Hork]

Another thing you can do for future power issues if your main pump is a DC pump you can get a dedicated DC battery backup like the CoralBox unit or EcoTech Vortech system. These units are much better for keeping your pumps running than any computer UPS.

For my system I did this.

I have a Current EFlux 6010 main pump (24v) and a pair of Jebao PP4's (12v). I picked up a CoralBox battery unit for backup. It comes with a pair of Y-adapter cables and various adapter tips. One male end of the barrel connector plugs into the 12v outlet of the battery. The other to the pump controller, and the pump power supply to the female connector of the Y-Adapter. Then you plug in the charger to the battery. Inside is a small 7AH 12v sealed battery and a small fused circuit board. This board is setup so it allows the twin 12v outputs to block voltage back to the battery. So the pump's power supply works as normal and the moment power loss happens 12v supply from the battery takes over. No voltage inverters or anything to suck up the power reserves. Now for the Eflux pump I picked up an Ecotech battery booster unit. This is nothing more than a voltage step up converter. It converts 12v to 24v. The barrel ends were too small to work with my battery and the EFlux pump, so I spliced it inline to the Y-adapter and connected it to the EFlux pump. The stock battery will run both my wave pumps and EFlux pump for just shy of 18 hours on a 7AH battery. So I picked up a pair of sealed 12v 35AH batteries and wired them in parallel to the CoralBox unit. I estimate I have 4-5 solid days of continuous run-time off this setup. This provides me plenty of time to handle getting the generator, and emergency cooling setup.


https://www.reefbreeders.com/shop/jebao-battery-back-up/
https://www.bulkreefsupply.com/vectra-battery-backup-booster-ecotech-marine.html

Of course this only works if you have DC pumps. If your pumps are AC then you will need an inverter, or get a large gel filled marine deep cycle battery and wire it to the UPS leads instead of the small internal battery. Doing this should net you at least 24 hours with only main pumps running.

 

[Dom]

Go to a local Home Depot / Lowes and rent a gas generator for a day until the work is done.

 

[SuncrestReef]

Go to a local Home Depot / Lowes and rent a gas generator for a day until the work is done.

Thanks to everyone for your ideas. It's funny, I just ordered a whole-house standby generator last week but it won't be installed for another 8 weeks. In the meantime, I'm planning to rent a portable generator from Home Depot for the day and just start it up before I head out to my meeting on Monday morning. I'll only run my powerheads, return pump, skimmer, and Apex for ATO. I'll turn off the lights and UV sterilizer to help keep the water cooler. I'll also run a fan.

 

[SuncrestReef]

I ended up renting a small Honda 2000 generator from Home Depot. Before leaving for my meeting, I connected my Apex EB832 and the other power strip in my Reefer cabinet to the generator. I also added a portable fan to an unused outlet on my EB832 and programmed it to turn on if the water temperature went above 78.5. While at work I was able to check in on Fusion from my phone to keep tabs on everything. The actual outage ended up being less than one hour, and after work I reconnected everything as normal. It all worked out fine.

Looking forward to my whole-house standby generator installation in September!

Thanks again to everyone who offered advice.

 

[Dennis McGrath]

We had a power failure here last week that lasted almost 4 hours. The temperature of the tanks went up up only 1 tenth of a degree.

 

[OriginalUserName]

Pick up a generator and a fan. Hook your tank up to generator power, top off the gas--should run you a good 8 hours. Hope the fan gives you enough evaporative cooling to keep temps under 84.

If you are running a generator you can also buy some insurance by running your heater while adding some frozen bottles of water. That way you don't overshoot and run it too cold but can still take advantage of the ice and maybe delay the temp increase.

 

[RocketBunny]

My electric utility company is doing a lot of work in my neighborhood to replace power poles and wires. Today I received a notice in the mail that they will be shutting off the power to my neighborhood next Monday for up to 4 hours, sometime between 8am - 3pm. They can't give an exact time. Monday's weather forecast is for 93 degrees, so I'm concerned that my tank will heat up quickly without the air conditioning working in the house, plus I won't have any flow in the tank once my UPS runs out of backup power after about 20 minutes.

I'm pretty new to the hobby, my tank is only 3 months old, so I'm not sure how much to worry about this. Will 4 hours without power be a major risk, or no problem? I have a Reefer XL 425 with only 6 fish, 2 shrimp, 14 corals, 1 anemone, and a cleanup crew. I can turn off the LED lights, UV sterilizer, and refugium pump to conserve power so the UPS might last a little longer, but I still don't think it will run more than 20 - 30 minutes on UPS power.

Any suggestions?

The most important thing in a reef is flow and heat... Don't mind the lights or the filtration... They will be good for around 8 hours with only power-heads running. To keep the heat down in your house, close all the doors to your aquarium room and shut all the windows with a thick curtain, so light (aka extra heat) doesn't enter.

So purchase or rent a good gas-electricity generator to keep your flow running, and if you are lucky enough, it may also be able to pull the filtration system as well.

Also, before the power-outage happens, get your conditioner running at like 60 Fahrenheit or less to cool down the house as much as possible... and for the future, get a chiller for emergency situations like this.

A bunch of frozen water bottles will definitely keep the heat down... since you will be gone, do you have anyone else in your house that could take care of putting water bottles or watching the tank?

If you have further questions please ask me! I'll be glad to help! Goodluck