Winter is coming

[Crabs McJones]

Winter is right around the corner for us folks in the northern hemisphere.
What are your reefing plans for winter?
What sort of emergency actions do you have planned (power outage, snowed in ect...)
Would love to hear all thoughts as it's been a few years since i've been through a winter with a reef.

 

[GoAskAlice]

As for power outages I have an EcoTech battery backup and several rechargeable JBJ air pumps. I'm currently looking at the Bluetti line of power stations to determine what I would need to power the tank's 2 600 watt heaters and for how long.

My game plan for potentially getting snowed in is to prepare to hunker down...pay attention to the weather forecasts, make sure I have extra fish food and additives on hand for the tank, make a trip to the supermarket (me and everyone else in the city depending on the forecast).

 

[bushdoc]

As I live in Central Valley,CA, winter here is spring elsewhere. Power outages are mostly in summer, so no special preparations for winter, other that I disconnected chiller from my setup for now.

 

[BonnieB]

I’m going to pray for no fires and power outages this winter ahead with our SoCal Santa Ana winds. Then I’ll plug in the generators and rotate them in and out to keep things running.

 

[Gumbies R Us]

We have a huge gas generator at our house where if the power goes out, it’ll automatically flip on and power the entire house

 

[Tangdora]

My cool neighbor after seeing my tank let me run an 100 extension table through a small forest that separates our house to his back patio. His house is on a genrac. Have my Neptune configured to run a backup VO that I manually switch on when I’m plugged in that’s turns all non critical components off, given I’m plugged into 15amp circuit and my tank uses two.

 

[ScottJ]

We're blessed to have a whole house automatic backup generator in case of power outages. I highly recommend one if you have the means. It's great peace of mind and lets my wife sleep better at night during bad weather (priceless)

As for being snowed in, we can last quite a while because I always stock up in case of a zombie apocalypse.

 

[Fish Fan]

We're blessed to have a whole house automatic backup generator in case of power outages. I highly recommend one if you have the means. It's great peace of mind and lets my wife sleep better at night during bad weather (priceless)

As for being snowed in, we can last quite a while because I always stock up in case of a zombie apocalypse.

I'm glad you have the whole house generator, that's the way to go if you can do it. I am looking into a regular, manual start generator as a just in case.

That said, I'm not far from you at all in the world (North of Canandaigua), and it's crazy to me how we don't get anywhere near the snowfall we did some years ago. Buffalo gets pounded, Syracuse still gets a lot, yet the Rochester area hardly sees a dusting anymore. We live barely 20 minutes from Bristol Mountain, and we can hardly ski there at all anymore. Very strange to me the lack of snowfall over the most recent years.

 

[Reefer Matt]

Winter is usually pretty decent as far as outages go in my area. I like fall/winter the most, and it’s also Reefing season!!!

 

[get-salty]

Not much snow here in N. Texas, but we get plenty of ice - Icy power line can be dangerous and break. There was a major power outage a few yrs back lasted nearly a week, luckily for me, my home is located within "hospital zone" so i was okay. I remember seeing postings of people had to break down their systems or had to start over bc everything fried/died.
I have two ecotech batt backups that will handle the pumps, but no plans yet with for the heaters. I may bite the bullet and get one of those fancy Lifep04 batt backup, if i can catch them on sale for black friday.

 

[ScottJ]

We're blessed to have a whole house automatic backup generator in case of power outages. I highly recommend one if you have the means. It's great peace of mind and lets my wife sleep better at night during bad weather (priceless)

As for being snowed in, we can last quite a while because I always stock up in case of a zombie apocalypse.

I'm glad you have the whole house generator, that's the way to go if you can do it. I am looking into a regular, manual start generator as a just in case.

That said, I'm not far from you at all in the world (North of Canandaigua), and it's crazy to me how we don't get anywhere near the snowfall we did some years ago. Buffalo gets pounded, Syracuse still gets a lot, yet the Rochester area hardly sees a dusting anymore. We live barely 20 minutes from Bristol Mountain, and we can hardly ski there at all anymore. Very strange to me the lack of snowfall over the most recent years.

It is rather odd isn't it. Although we do seem to get one or two big storms in January or february. But that really is about it. We wanted the generator mostly for the wind storms that we get sometimes in the spring. That one maybe 10 years ago? That was a big one and we were out for 5 days or so. That's what really got us thinking about it back up generator. Since we got it though, I think the power is gone out once for maybe 5 minutes.

 

[Sophie"s mom]

We have a huge gas generator at our house where if the power goes out, it’ll automatically flip on and power the entire house

same here! We were lucky enough to have the ability to have a home generator installed a couple years ago. What a giant peace of mind that is.

 

[backbayreef]

Indeed - it can be extremely treacherous living in SoCal where our lows can get to dangerous 40F at night and 65F during the day. When our temperature gets outside the 68-72F range, we need to be extra vigilant and take additional precautionary measures to stay safe...

Regardless, I do have a UPS that's always active, switching between batteries & street power daily...

 

[Fish Fan]

Since we got it though, I think the power is gone out once for maybe 5 minutes.

I think that's always the way

 

[Crabs McJones]

where our lows can get to dangerous 40F at night and 65F during the day.

That's shorts and t-shirt weather up here!

 

[backbayreef]

That's shorts and t-shirt weather up here!

lol - county-wide state of emergency for us at sub 50F! Our survival skills ain't so good and many of us can't even drive during the rain - sad but true...

 

[vlangel]

In western PA we haven't had a real winter for quite some time but the Farmer's Almanac is predicting an old fashion winter for the north-east. I am hoping. Our family has 2 cars and I have 2 power inverters that basically work like gas generators. We can run the aquarium, fridge, freezer and a few other less essential things, plus we have a log burning fireplace and lots of dry, split wood. So we are good.

 

[LPS Bum]

Here in Denver metro our winters are a lot better than most people think. We get 1 or 2 good sized storms each year but they’re usually in the early spring. In 18 years here I can count on one hand the number of times our power has gone out, but I have a portable Servomaster unit that will run my return pump and ATO for 18 hours. Hopefully that gets the job done.

 

[Gumbies R Us]

same here! We were lucky enough to have the ability to have a home generator installed a couple years ago. What a giant peace of mind that is.

It's funny when the power goes out in the neighborhood. Everyone's house is pitch black except for ours, haha

 

[Sophie"s mom]

It's funny when the power goes out in the neighborhood. Everyone's house is pitch black except for ours, haha

How long does yours take to kick in? Ours takes about a minute.