Power outage

[CatsandClowns]

Hello hello,

We’ve got a scheduled power outage in my area tonight between 9pm-6am and I’m looking for advice. Unfortunately I do not have a battery backup and won’t be able to order one in time, though this is now a priority purchase moving forward. However I will likely be able to get some battery powered bubblers, and I am wondering if this will be enough to keep everything alive, or at least my fish.

For more information, I live in SoCal and tonight nightly temps won’t drop below 64 degrees before power comes back on. I doubt it will get down to that temp, though I may be mistaken.
Additionally, tank is 38 gallons(typically heated to 78/79) with 4 fish, all under 2/2.5 inches, and only a handful of sps, mostly softies and LPs. While it would suck to lose the corals, my main concern is my fish.

Heating wise, should I just wrap the tank in a blanket, and will two battery powered air stones be plenty overnight? Thoughts, opinions?

 

[EricR]

Heating wise, should I just wrap the tank in a blanket, and will two battery powered air stones be plenty overnight? Thoughts, opinions?

This is exactly what I've done in the past for a 40 gallon soft coral tank and had no issues -- 2x battery pumps with air stones and wrap the tank, just like you said.
Close up the house/windows after the hottest part of the day when outside temp starts falling to conserve heat.

Hot water into bottles to float if tank temp starts getting too low but I never had to do that.
*gas stove would be one option but I'd think just hot water from tap may be sufficient

 

[mfinn]

Hello hello,

We’ve got a scheduled power outage in my area tonight between 9pm-6am and I’m looking for advice. Unfortunately I do not have a battery backup and won’t be able to order one in time, though this is now a priority purchase moving forward. However I will likely be able to get some battery powered bubblers, and I am wondering if this will be enough to keep everything alive, or at least my fish.

For more information, I live in SoCal and tonight nightly temps won’t drop below 64 degrees before power comes back on. I doubt it will get down to that temp, though I may be mistaken.
Additionally, tank is 38 gallons(typically heated to 78/79) with 4 fish, all under 2/2.5 inches, and only a handful of sps, mostly softies and LPs. While it would suck to lose the corals, my main concern is my fish.

Heating wise, should I just wrap the tank in a blanket, and will two battery powered air stones be plenty overnight? Thoughts, opinions?

I think for a small tank it should be fine.
If this was me, I would probably stay up a little later than usual and every 1/2 hour ( maybe every 20 minutes) using a quart container and scoop water from the tank and dump it back for a few minutes, creating a little splashing in the top of the water.

 

[BryanM]

Seems like a fine plan. It is also my experience that these planned outages do not last the entire time.

 

[TheSaltyCPA]

Man. I’ve lost power for three days and used battery powered air stones for the entire duration. The house got up to about 95 degrees, and the tank was getting uncomfortably warm.

But those air stones did their job. A hurricane came through and absolutely devastated our area. Fish all made it though.

I wouldn’t sweat this at all. Your house will hold heat for awhile, And the tank will hold temp even longer. I wouldn’t even bother with the blankets.

 

[dwest]

I kept alive my old 90 gallon system alive for 5 days with air bubblers. I also got a pitcher and filled it with tank water and poured it back in the tank periodically when I could. My temperature situation was similar to yours and I personally would not worry about temperature.

Good luck and try to sleep!

 

[strich]

You said you can't get a battery backup right now, but have you considered going to your local hardware store and buying some cordless drill batteries? Ryobi for example have high density batteries for their drills and they also have a little unit you can plug the battery into to get a wall socket connection from. It'll run a bubbler for ages for sure as even bigger units are only about 10W.

 

[TokenReefer]

Hopefully that's a large overestimated window and no issues. How long do the air pumps run on battery? Can you run them one at a time in succession if it's not enough run time for one?

 

[Kooma]

Hello hello,

We’ve got a scheduled power outage in my area tonight between 9pm-6am and I’m looking for advice. Unfortunately I do not have a battery backup and won’t be able to order one in time, though this is now a priority purchase moving forward. However I will likely be able to get some battery powered bubblers, and I am wondering if this will be enough to keep everything alive, or at least my fish.

For more information, I live in SoCal and tonight nightly temps won’t drop below 64 degrees before power comes back on. I doubt it will get down to that temp, though I may be mistaken.
Additionally, tank is 38 gallons(typically heated to 78/79) with 4 fish, all under 2/2.5 inches, and only a handful of sps, mostly softies and LPs. While it would suck to lose the corals, my main concern is my fish.

Heating wise, should I just wrap the tank in a blanket, and will two battery powered air stones be plenty overnight? Thoughts, opinions?

Go buy a Honda 2000 watt suitcase generator.