power failures

[JPR]

I have recently visited the website and greatly admired Len Ho's reef set up. It took a long time to get that living work of art!

So here is my question, what does one do to protect such an investment in time and money against a power failure? How long can a well stocked reef last when the power goes out and is there anything one can do besides pray? James P

 

[Anonymous]

Have a generator with enough capacity to run the main pump and some lighting at least. And your refrigerator.

 

[Anonymous]

I agree that a generator is about the only thing that can protect against a prolonged power outage.

But if the power outage is less than a day, and the room temperature stays within human limits, some reef tanks would see no ill effects. But then most of us don't set up our systems that way.

 

[PJsea]

You could get a battery backup that might last you for a few hours but it would take a gas generator to go any longer. Short duration outages wouldn't require anything. Certainly if you were in an area prone to severe storms and power outages the generator would be a good idea.

BTW Most generators that people buy probably couldn't handle the starting current of a refrigerator.

 

[Anonymous]

Ehh? I run two refrigerators and a de-humidifier on mine and it is a Coleman 5000W (5600 surge)

 

[Mihai]

I agree that a generator is about the only thing that can protect against a prolonged power outage.

I'm stunned! I thought that plantlife would protect you as well!
Beaslbob, this is the first problem that I ever saw that you do not solve with more plantlife. Actually your entire post does not have the word plantlife in it. Are you sick Bob? You should see a doctor.

Regarding the actual question - it depends on how long is the power outage. For a few hours (even a few days if heat is not a problem - see posts from Florida last summer) you can get by with air pumps. There are emmergency air pumps that work on batteries and you can plug them in the power strip - when the power goes down they kick in. They're fairly cheap too ($12 at petsmart).

Others have an inverter that gets power from a car battery - depending on your system you may get heat and pumps for a few to many hours.

A full blown power generator is a good solution (runs $300 - $500) and a cheap alternative to replacing all your livestock. I'm not sure where you live, but I'm in a rather small city (Cary, NC 100K) and we had power failures for a few days at a time in the winter, so a power generator is a must (we don't like sleeping at 30F either).

M.

 

[Anonymous]

My tanks are small so I have it easy. My power was recently off for about 3 hours. Not too long, but I took action anyway. I just siphoned water into a 5 gallon bucket and poured it back into the tank every half hour or so.