Dealing With Power Cuts - Reef-Fanatics.com - The Authority In Coral Reef Keeping And Saltwater Aquariums

whynotfive · 02-24-2008, 01:36 AM

In the past month we have lost power three times. One time it was rather significant with power being gone after a storm, for almost two days.

How do you protect your saltwater aquarium without power for heat (and light, and ambient temperature dropping drastically).

Mr.Reefer · 02-24-2008, 05:24 AM

Well, if you have the money, you can buy a big generator to power all your house, or get a small one to power just your fish tanks.
But to the regular hobbyist the best option is to get one of those battery powered air pumps, so you can supply oxygen to your tank and keep your livestock alive, you can find one here: http://www.drsfostersmith.com/Product/Prod_Display.cfm?pcatid=8120&Nty=1&Ntx=mode+matcha llpartial&Ntk=All&N=2004&Ntt=battery%20pump&Np=1

If you live in a very cold area, heating also maybe an issue. You can try getting an UPS (uninterruptible power supply), the ones that come for computers and home appliances, you can hook your heater to that UPS unit and get 2-10 hours of heating, depending of the wattage of the UPS you bought.

DJChesnutRabbit · 02-24-2008, 12:05 PM

We have a generator that can run everything on our tank, but we wont have the lighting on for heat issues. If it came down to several days with out power, we could kick on one metal halide at a time to give the corals some light.

ScubaDave · 02-26-2008, 09:08 AM

There are a number of short term solutions such as various small battery operated generators which won't set you back that much however if the power is gone for a long time then you could be in trouble.

A big generator to power just the tanks would be the best solution, just pray you don't have to use it.

Mr.Reefer · 02-26-2008, 06:19 PM

Hey today there was a HUGE power outage, affecting almost half of the whole Florida state! Anybody here got affected by this??

DJChesnutRabbit · 02-26-2008, 09:02 PM

Nothing happened to me. I heard of several people having outages all around Orlando though.

whynotfive · 02-27-2008, 12:32 AM

I have never considered a generator for the house, I mean it's not like we get hit much with snow and so I just never thought we would need anything. Normally it's just a case of waiting it out.

But obviously with live stock that is sensitive to the heat, it worries me. Especially since some of our issues are local, and so very limited in area and very limited as to the priority we are given for repair.