Storm Season among us. Power outage readiness!!!

HBK's Lagoon · Jun 6, 2018

Good afternoon everyone, I wanted to make this thread to give myself and others who live in Florida and other outlying states who are affected by hurricanes and other storms which can leave us without power for days to weeks at a time. I am still newish to the hobby and I haven't had my tank up and running long so I haven't experienced a power outage lasting longer than a few minutes while the tank has been up and running. Anyone who has a good plan of action that will work on the smallest to largest sizes of tanks. I myself have a 25gal lagoon. I already have a bubble box and extra batteries, and frozen bottles of water to help oxygen levels and water temp. Any other tips or tricks to help your aquarium survive is greatly appreciated. Also I understand a generator is the best option probably, but I live in an apartment and don't have storage space for one. Thank you to all who post and happy reefing everyone, stay safe during this storm season.

Don Capalchey · Jun 6, 2018

Back-up generator always best option.

Since you have a nano, a good alternative would be a window for light and a battery powered air-stone.

Reeferdood · Jun 6, 2018

HBK's Lagoon said:
Good afternoon everyone, I wanted to make this thread to give myself and others who live in Florida and other outlying states who are affected by hurricanes and other storms which can leave us without power for days to weeks at a time. I am still newish to the hobby and I haven't had my tank up and running long so I haven't experienced a power outage lasting longer than a few minutes while the tank has been up and running. Anyone who has a good plan of action that will work on the smallest to largest sizes of tanks. I myself have a 25gal lagoon. I already have a bubble box and extra batteries, and frozen bottles of water to help oxygen levels and water temp. Any other tips or tricks to help your aquarium survive is greatly appreciated. Also I understand a generator is the best option probably, but I live in an apartment and don't have storage space for one. Thank you to all who post and happy reefing everyone, stay safe during this storm season.

Got gas and generator and tons of beer....
I would say I am set!

HBK's Lagoon · Jun 6, 2018

Haha I can’t afford a generator usually is a few days to week until I can borrow one. But I’m with you plenty of beer and my tank is in a room that has direct sunlight through one window but not close enough for direct. It will be an interesting hurricane season.

Reeferdood · Jun 6, 2018

HBK's Lagoon said:
Haha I can’t afford a generator usually is a few days to week until I can barrow one. But I’m with you plenty of beer and my tank is in a room that has direct sunlight through one window but not close enough for direct. It will be an interesting hurricane season.

Let's hope they all stay offshore and just bring us some epic surf this year!

Flippers4pups · Jun 6, 2018

Small tank, a power inverter would be a good choice. Run it off a car battery. Even better would be to be able to run it off a car battery in a car, so you can recharge it by running the car. Inverters aren't that expensive, depending on the size needed.

Captain Quint · Jun 6, 2018

Great thread.

HBK's Lagoon · Jun 6, 2018

Captain Quint said:
Great thread.

Thank you for all the reply’s and ideals. Hoping all the storms stay off shore and bring good surf. But unfortunately for me where I live if a car changes lanes in front of the transformer at the wrong time the power goes out. Once again thank you to all who commented, keep it up so we all have a good source to refer to in a time of an outage. Happy reefing everyone.

DLHDesign · Jun 7, 2018

Not apartment friendly, but - Powerwall. I've got one in the current house and am putting two in the new house that's being built. I've set it to hold onto 20% of its charge for emergency situations. So long as I'm around to turn off the hot tub and A/C, that would last us through the night until the solar picks up. (The new house will have a smart A/C I'll be able to turn off remotely and I'll be upgrading the hot tub to have wi-fi.)

The advantage of this over a generator is that this can help save you money even when there's no outage (rate shifting, solar charging, etc.).

HBK's Lagoon · Jun 8, 2018

DLHDesign said:
Not apartment friendly, but - Powerwall. I've got one in the current house and am putting two in the new house that's being built. I've set it to hold onto 20% of its charge for emergency situations. So long as I'm around to turn off the hot tub and A/C, that would last us through the night until the solar picks up. (The new house will have a smart A/C I'll be able to turn off remotely and I'll be upgrading the hot tub to have wi-fi.)

The advantage of this over a generator is that this can help save you money even when there's no outage (rate shifting, solar charging, etc.).

Definitely making note of this once I’m in a house for sure. Thanks for sharing.

wilecyote007 · Jun 10, 2018

Flippers4pups said:
Small tank, a power inverter would be a good choice. Run it off a car battery. Even better would be to be able to run it off a car battery in a car, so you can recharge it by running the car. Inverters aren't that expensive, depending on the size needed.

Dude this is genius. My power is out and I have at least one powerhead going now. Ran an extension from my sub to tank. Guess I will set a 30 min alarm to crank on the SUV. Seriously though great quick fix in a tight spot.

60CubeReefer · Jun 10, 2018

Doesn't take up that much space.

Flippers4pups · Jun 10, 2018

wilecyote007 said:
Dude this is genius. My power is out and I have at least one powerhead going now. Ran an extension from my sub to tank. Guess I will set a 30 min alarm to crank on the SUV. Seriously though great quick fix in a tight spot.

Glad it's working out for you!

brandon429 · Jun 10, 2018

Do not have a filthy cloudy sandbed in an outage prone reef. When circulation stops it becomes your highest bioload and o2 consumer source in the reef, direct competition with all other respiring animals. If the outage lasts long enough and the organic loading is high enough to support a massive bacterial load far beyond the essential needs of the tank, bac colonies in oxygen-sapped zones of the bed can die (starved of o2) then after consuming all the oxygen in solution the typical reef bed shifts into a dead aerobes ammonia pump, all bad settings at the expense of keeping the sandbed 89% of reefs keep (cloudy, if you reached in and grabbed a handful of sand and released)

Have no sand, or sand that passes a drop test if you want the strongest biological reinforcement in an outage prone reef

Excess detritus is #1 option to avoid when circulation stops if higher order animals are to be supported in priority

The biological oxygen demand afforded by the sludge in a sandbed is always taxing, it's just incidental demand to a functioning system of decent turnover. A cleaner reef will always live longer during stillness than an aged, compacted one. They go into cardio arrest ten times faster

This thread below is making any reef tank waste free without killing it, skip cycle rip cleaning. The time to do this is when:
-Hurricane prep
-Hurricane cleanup in a tank, stress cleanup. This process rids decay clogging up your live rock pores, it's regenerative. Run this after extended power outages.
-when moving homes. Clean tanks can't recycle.
-beating cyano or dinos
or ran as preventative. My reef is fourteen yrs old bc of this cleaning style, it cures old tank syndrome by not allowing it. This act of occasionally being a thorough reef storm makes me not have problems, it's preemptive, so I'm not responding to them.

The reason I'm the only one running it preventatively is because we were all told that sand rinsing is bad, the man said that, but I didn't listen. I'm unwilling to lose a fourteen year effort, so it's ran. The system is tight: if you run it you won't get a recycle, we r four years into logging proof.

Official Sand Rinse and Tank Transfer thread

If you are reading this thread to cure a tank invasion from a link I sent you, we do not need to identify your type of invasion here we do not need you to test anything at anytime regarding nitrate, phosphate etc Above all, we do not need to see a microscope slide picture of your invasion at...

www.reef2reef.com

*no whining about removing good wigglers. They're on sale at algen for nine dollars refugium charger kit, put em back sans filth. Let no reason or rationale talk you into keeping filth stored in the tank says big work thread

KMench · Jun 10, 2018

I have an inverter and an extension cord. Worst case, I can run the inverter to my tank or borrow one of the small Honda generators pictured above from a friend

Zeal · Jun 10, 2018

Not many suggestions for people that live in Condos/Apartments...

IslandLifeReef · Jun 10, 2018

Last year after Irma, we were without power for 3 days. I just used a battery powered air pump with a stone, opened the windows to help keep it cool, and stirred the tank every 3-4 hours. I didn't have a single loss.

Reef man 89 · Jun 10, 2018

My advice is to have somthing on stand by. This past winter we lost power for 4 days and my tank got down to 40 degrees and I lost all but a couple zoas. I learned my lesson and some battery packs.