power outages in monsoon season

[sillygoose]

What do you do if the power goes out? Does anyone have a generator for their fish? If so, how did you determine the right size?

 

[Tucson Reef]

Many ways to do it, generator, some powerheads run on 24 volts and have emergency battery back up(Tunze and Vortex Eco's come to mind), there is a plug in air pump that comes on if power goes out. I installed a 75 AMP generator that will run most of the house if power goes out and a tranfer box so I can switch back and forth between TEP and generator with out cross connect and BOOM. Get a small generator and size it to your amps, if you have a 90 gal a 20+ amp will get you by. I would get the biggest I could afford. Ours runs all kitchen, except stove (we can use microwave), all living room, TV, 110 Reef, 54 Discus, Bathroom, Computer room, bedroom and 2 outdoor ponds. Used to run the swamp cooler too before we got central air. If we ever had a long outage in summer, I would just get one of those portable AC units and keep it comfortable. In winter we have portable heaters for the rooms we are in.

 

[sillygoose]

Thanks! It gives my husband and I something to think about it.

 

[jjk_reef00]

I have a Belkin Omniguard 3200 ups battery backup sitting in my garage.
Very large and heavy unit.
It says 120V on the back of the unit but the plug is not the standard 120V plug.
If you want it I will trade it for a frag of something you have in your tank.
I would love a nice sps frag.

 

[scubabum1983]

I also got a honda generator. last year i had a long outage, and nearly lost everything. the generator was pricey at almost 900 bucks but its worth it.

 

[sillygoose]

Thanks for the trade offer jjk. Sorry, I don't have any SPS. We have LPS and softies...the only things I can trade are GSP and brown polyps LOL.

 

[jjk_reef00]

If you want it I'll sell it to you for $30

 

[prickles]

I have a generator specifically from a power outage last year. I lost power for about 20 hrs and couldn't get the generator running until about 9AM when I got back from HD. I ran the korallias on an inverter from my car all night (12 hrs) but lost several critters. I have heard that walmart sells battery powered air stones/pumps. It looked to me that the things that died, died from PH/air which the air stones should help with.

 

[SWSaltwater]

I was hit by that same outage, stayed up all night with an inverter on my truck airating every tank for a few mins each walking the shop in rotation, did not loose a single critter in the 20 hours but was super lucky I heard about the outage during the storm. Almost ran into a fallen tree on country club getting there but not one place with a genereator was open after 10.

 

[Tanque Verde]

I've read that the UPS battery backups aren't compatible with many pumps. Something about sine waves. Anybody got insight on that?

 

[SWSaltwater]

IMO you are better off only using the UPS on a powerhead or air pump. The circulation pumps take more juice and run them down too fast.