What do you do when the power goes out?

[ellebelle]

What kind of emergency measures do people use in case the power goes out in the short term?

I have a situation where if I blow a fuse, I can't get to the circuit breaker to flip the switch. I am at the mercy of my super to be around and flip it for me. Usually this only takes about twenty minutes. Today it took an hour. over the 4th of July (when I didn't have a tank), I didn't have power overnight. I'm currently trying to remedy the sitation with my landlord, but does anyone have any suggestions of things I could do in the short term?

 

[herman]

Distribute your tank equipment over several breakers. Or is it just the whole apartment. In that case you should just get a UPS (same like computer backup) The UPS will keep the Tunze streams or vortechs running for several hours. At least you keep the water flowing. That is the most important thing in a reeftank. Oxygen and nutrient import/export.

 

[prattreef]

Somewhere archived on the site is an article I wrote about just such situations. In short, for the situation you describe, I concur with Herman, but I would also recommend investing in 1 or 2 battery operated air pumps attached to airstones. These will keep your dissolved oxygen at acceptable levels for many hours. They are a cheap and effective safeguard that there is no excuse for not having.( but you do need to be around when the outage occurs). Randy

 

[meschaefer]

Right now, I get down on my knees and pray that the power comes back on quickly. (dumb I know, but you probably say it anyway cause I just don't get it for some reason)

I keep plannin to buy two of these . The nice thing about these air pumps is that they detect when the power goes out and turn the air pumps on.

 

[prattreef]

Those do look good, but you have to live with airstones in your tank all the time. RD

 

[scarf_ace1981]

some reading material:

http://www.manhattanreefs.com/forum...-post-here-others.html?highlight=power+outage

i think this is the one randy's reffering to
http://www.manhattanreefs.com/forum...hen-lights-go-out.html?highlight=power+outage

 

[ellebelle]

My apartment is all on one breaker. Thanks for the suggestions.

 

[meschaefer]

Those do look good, but you have to live with airstones in your tank all the time. RD

I figure they could be placed in the tank in an unobtrusive way, run the line down a back corner. I hide the airstone behind a peice of rock. With a little creativity, it shouldn't be too hard.

 

[epares]

power thoughts

I bought two of the airstones, ran the tubes down the back of the tank, hid the tubes behind some liverock, you cant even see them. I then took my two powerheads and plugged one of them into a ups, and plugged one of the battery operated airstones into the ups. That way , when the power goes out initially one airstone will run along with one powerhead, then after the ups runs out-- in about 6hours with that small amount of draw from the power head ( Aquaclear 70 ) , then the second airstone kicks in for another 7hours or so. So for less then $100 ( not including powerheads) you can buy about 13 hours of oxygen for the tank.

On the other hand, I just got my Vortech pump with battery backup hooked up today and when that is set for less than 50% power it is supposed to run for 30 hours..... Good luck!--E

 

[Cibo]

I use a UPS when The power went out in the summer it lasted for 12 hrs the heater and filter pump then the power came back on!!!!

 

[Wes]

what kind of UPS you guys use? I am looking to buy one and want a good one.

 

[herman]

Ideally you would get deep cycle marine batteries with an inverter. That will keep your tank running for days. But if that is nt possible you can go to just about any office store like stapples and get a UPS. There are many kinds. For Tunze Streams or pumps of similar wattage a 700-1000mv UPS will do fine for a while.

 

[Craig]

do you have the battery and invertor attached in some sort of standby mode? or do you just hook it up in the event of a blackout?

can you reccomend an invertor battery combo?

 

[Wes]

yeah im thinking to keep a deep cell charged in my bedroom closet for extended power losses. but nowhere to hide it in/behind the stand and keep it connected at all times. I wish I had the room to keep it hooked up w/ a trickle charger and inverter.

I need the UPS to keep the tunzes moving a while for when noone is home.

 

[Chiefmcfuz]

APC UPS 900 & 350 models. Same as I use for my computer. These are attached to my fuge pump and to my protien skimmer.

 

[meschaefer]

How do you figure out how long a ups will last. I want to keep two tunze 6025's pulling 7 watts each or 14 watts per hour. Say I had a ups providing 140 watts. Would they run run for ten hours?

 

[cali_reef]

How do you figure out how long a ups will last. I want to keep two tunze 6025's pulling 7 watts each or 14 watts per hour. Say I had a ups providing 140 watts. Would they run run for ten hours?

NO!!

The only way is to try it and determine the length of the time the internal lead gel battery will be able to keep up with the inductive pump(s). The watt rating they use does not correlate to the the watts used by your pump, there are also efficiency losses during th 12V DC to the 110V modified sine wave AC conversion.

You should also test run the UPS on some kind of schedule, the internal battery will lose its ability to hold full charge over time.

An $50 APC UPS is the one of the best solution for a reef tank thats already using a good powerhead as a circulation pump, the pump will alway run to provide circulation on AC power and automatically kick into DC converted AC power when the power dies at your place. You do not need to be home to turn it on and you are not adding any additional items inside of the tank just for back up purpose.

A bank(few) of marine batteries and an inverter\charger are great for larger tank systems, same operation but bigger batteries to provide more power for the larger pumps. I use one of these http://www.nextag.com/Tripp-Lite-PowerVerter-APSX750-87767048/prices-html with two large marine batteries, it was able to provide enough juice to power an large Sequence pump(450+ watts) for few hours.

The longer term solution will be an generator..

The BEST solution is to get rid of your tank(s) before the power goes out :lol2:.

 

[meschaefer]

NO!!


The BEST solution is to get rid of your tank(s) before the power goes out :lol2:.

hmmm... I don't know if I should be taking advice from a newbie.... let me guess that you are using a seaclone skimmmer on a five gallon Finding Nemo inspired tank with a clown, hippo tang, yellow tang, morish idol, a puffer and some sort of damsel.

 

[leoskee]

hmmm... I don't know if I should be taking advice from a newbie.... let me guess that you are using a seaclone skimmmer on a five gallon Finding Nemo inspired tank with a clown, hippo tang, yellow tang, morish idol, a puffer and some sort of damsel.

:funnypost At least I hope its a joke. lol

 

[meschaefer]

:funnypost At least I hope its a joke. lol

I need to make better use of emoticons, but it is a joke.