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After being without power for 11 hours today I started wondering short of getting a generator for house what to people do with long stretches of time with loss of power... everything seems fine..water temp down to 68 in both tanks but things SEEM to be fine right now..battery powered equipment???

I've never had my power go out for a long period of time. I know a lot of people use battery powered air pumps just to keep oxygen in the water. The temp drop isn't too much of an issue as long as it doesn't get too cold.

best thing of course is a generator powerful enugh
to run the whole house

from what I've heard
propane hard wired is best
..but a big project and many thousands of dollars

another good option is a large battery back up
often used at computer companies

I have UPS's (uninterruptible power supplies) on all my tanks.

www.refurbups.com is a great place to get them. i have a 1400va, a couple 1000va and some smaller 350-500va models around.

i personally prefer APC as a brand, but i'm coming at this from a computer professional standpoint-- probably not that big a deal for some pumps etc.

note: don't plug your heater in to the UPS, just a filter or at least an air pump... water retains heat for a nice long time, and even over several hours (temps won't drop far-- and if they do, they've done so gradually with minimal shock to the fish.)

nchoe123 wrote:

I have UPS's (uninterruptible power supplies) on all my tanks.

www.refurbups.com is a great place to get them. i have a 1400va, a couple 1000va and some smaller 350-500va models around.

i personally prefer APC as a brand, but i'm coming at this from a computer professional standpoint-- probably not that big a deal for some pumps etc.

note: don't plug your heater in to the UPS, just a filter or at least an air pump... water retains heat for a nice long time, and even over several hours (temps won't drop far-- and if they do, they've done so gradually with minimal shock to the fish.)

So how long would one of those last if I had, say, an Aquatech 30-60 plugged into it?
Because, very frankly, I don't think I'd need it for as short a time as 15 or even 30 minutes, but on a Reef tank, anything close to an hour without current probably wouldn't be good.

And does that battery recharge when power is restored?

if you go to APC's site, you can plug in the size of the UPS and the load... you don't need to have lights (unless you're a reefkeeper, and if so, well, i'm not sure what to do; reef lights would blow through a UPS pretty quickly).

filter is about all; water keeps heat pretty effectively, especially if you have a full glass cover. i think that some of my bigger UPS's could probably keep a filter going for 2-3h.

of course, it would be beeping all the time, driving me crazy

yes, the batteries recharge. every so often it'll hum, and click as it tests itself.

check out the site i listed for the best price really.

This discussion covers how you can handle an outage lasting a few hours... I am counting my lucky stars that in the current ice storm we miraculously have not lost power (though plenty around us have). I'm guessing there are many tanks in NE that are now days without power.

Any words of wisdom on how to handle such an extended outage?

Thanks

When I had my breeding pair of stingrays I invested in a small generator. It saved their lives at least once. Not a bad purchase if you have a lot of tanks, or if loosing certain fish would devastate you. I believe that I got the generator at a home depot.
-Sam