what to do in the event of a power failure?

[olavvk]

Yesterday evening I was at home and I turned on a lamp in the hallway which caused a short electric power faillure for my whole appartment. I immediately panicked because everything fell out of my aquarium. In the end, luckily it only took 5 minutes and I was able to solve it myself. but what if the problem lasts longer? how are you prepared for this? what measures can I take to limit this damage as much as possible in case this might happen again in the future?

 

[Bucs20fan]

A battery back up will help, flow and temp are the most important for a shorter duration power outage. It heavily depends how expensive you want to get. I bought a generator to run my tanks and my appliances. A power outage for a couple days can be easily worked through provided you can keep water moving with a power head and a heater to stabilize temp. Cheapest solution would be a power inverter for a vehicle and run extension cord to the powerhead/ heater.

 

[KStatefan]

I have my flow pumps on a battery back up for a short term solution. Long term I have a portable generator.

 

[reeftankdude]

For my 20GH I have four battery operated air pumps for oxygen and flow. I will plug my heater into a car battery jumper.

 

[Jekyl]

6500w portable generator I use for my whole house.

 

[Reefer Matt]

A battery operated air pump and air stone will provide air and some circulation if a battery backup or generator aren't feasible. If temps get low, then heating the tank will be a priority also. Extra batteries too.

 

[d2mini]

We are in Hurricane country so we recently got a 22k standby generator.
Otherwise.... a portable generator would be next best. An inverter you can run off your car. Battery powered air pumps for short term power losses. Bottles of ice water can help cool a tank when your house loses AC.

 

[Blue Spot Octopus]

I used a Tunze 6095 or a 6055 or a 6040, then I get the
Tunze Safety Connector 6105.500$64.99marineandreef.comFree shipping, no tax60-day returns (most items)
Then get a sealed battery.
Buy a battery tender to keep the battery always charged.
I ran my Tunze 6095 for 5 days on a batter.

 

[flashsmith]

I'm in Central Florida so we get storms from both coasts at times. Having a generator is one thing but finding gas to run it is next to impossible at times. So I gave up on that route. If power is out for days with our heat here unless you run a whole house generator that can run your ac you're going to lose everything anyway. So a portable one isn't really an option because it still leaves you with no way to cool your water down. Most people don't have chillers.Going out every day to search for gas is a crap shoot too. I was out for 9 days once but fortunately I wasn't in the hobby at that time. Nothing would have survived that.

 

[Radman73]

When Irma hit Orlando a few years ago I survived on a marine battery for my MP40 and running a gen 4 hours on/4 hours off for 5 days. Gas supply is a real issue but you don't have to run everything 100% of the time. The MP40 ran all 5 days on the marine battery I bought.

 

[Cali Reef Life]

What do you mean everything fell out? I live in place where power outages are normally less then 6 hours so not to worried and no major storms. I usually just manually dose and use a red cup and turkey baster to get oygexen in the tank every hour till it comes back on.

 

[EricR]

One thing to keep in mind:
There's a big difference between an outage that happens when home/nearby that you notice,
...vs...
Outage when you're away and don't know about it.

I have a couple of battery air pumps and and air stones to suffice for scenario one (for a reasonable amount of time).

Not prepared for scenario two but have considered it and just starting to seriously look into it (auto-switching DC battery setup for pumps).

 

[Cali Reef Life]

One thing to keep in mind:
There's a big difference between an outage that happens when home/nearby that you notice,
...vs...
Outage when you're away and don't know about it.

I have a couple of battery air pumps and and air stones to suffice for scenario one (for a reasonable amount of time).

Not prepared for scenario two but have considered it and just starting to seriously look into it (auto-switching DC battery setup for pumps).

I do have a dose pump that sends me a notification if offline so I do have something in place but better to have a plan and not need it then to have no plan and need it.

 

[EricR]

I do have a dose pump that sends me a notification if offline so I do have something in place but better to have a plan and not need it then to have no plan and need it.

Excellent!
You've convinced me to go figure out how to setup "offline" notification for the InkBird I bought a couple of weeks ago during the 50% sale.

Haven't seen/found how to setup the push notifications (to phone) yet but I guess I need to figure that out. Thanks...

 

[czoolander]

Generator........ honestly the best thing to do !!!

The only downside is I have to be home to turn on the generator . Which could be catastrophic in wintertime if im at work for 8 hours

 

[Gtinnel]

I have and love a generac standby generator. I will never have another house without one. Power goes out and 10 seconds later it comes back on.
If for some reason my power went out and my generator failed I guess I’m going to have to get a spoon and start moving some water around Hopefully it wouldn’t be during a really hot or cold time of the year.

 

[Daniel@R2R]

Good discussion especially as we move into the time of year when power outages will be an issue for many in our community.

 

[jhrightyhein]

I have portable gas generator but currently looking into battery back up in situation that I’m not home at the time of outage. Trying to research best one to get I see a lot of people use the ecotech battery back up.

 

[FurrierTransform]

The main thing to do is to ensure your tank doesn't siphon out everything to the floor.

 

[Bucs20fan]

I know money is tight for all of us, and we dump all of our extra into our little slices of the ocean, but I would like to make a good point. Now, right before winter alot of the warehouse stores aka, sams club and costco put generators on sale. Yes they sell ones that are well over 1k but you can find a generator that would run a massive tank alone for a couple hundred dollars USD, Last year I bought one from costco that is 10,500 watts for 700 and its tri-fuel. Id gladly spend this again to save my tanks.