Scheduled Power Outage, Advice/Equipment

[MarcJell]

Hi all,

So I'm sure many of you may have experienced this but at least I've been notified of when it's happening.

Seems I live in the U.K we don't tend to have many outages but on this occasion it's scheduled maintance.

I have multiple marine nano aquariums and basically wondering what I should do?
Two are cycling and two are stocked. Others aren't setup.
I also have four tropical setup stocked.

Here's a pic to see what we're dealing with here:

Tank A Stock List: 1 Clownfish, 1 Blood Fire Shrimp, 3 Turbo Snails, Hammer Coral, Carribean Anenome, Green Star Polyp.
Tank B Stock List: 1 Yellow Tail Blue Damsel, 1 Cleaner Shrimp, 2 Turbo Snails.

I don't want to loose any livestock or the beneficial bacteria so I'm hoping for some tips tricks and help aha.

Have plenty of time to get bits if needed.
Date outage: 1st September
Estimated Outage : 9Am till 2PM

Could be longer could be shorter.

So help much appreciated

Thanks,
Marc

 

[eastlake]

A battery powered aerator may suit your purposes just fine. Most run on d-cell batteries and will last far longer than the duration of the outage. Downside, you'll have to buy 4 of them. Up side, they're not terribly expensive and most bait shops and/or decent pet stores carry them. Worst case scenario you'll have to order them through an online retailer.

 

[Cymonous]

Get two battery powered air pumps, tubing, two T-connectors, 4 air stones. One pump for two tanks, tubing with a T-connector, tubing off each end to air stones in each tank.

If room temp is warm enough, you shouldn't need heaters.

 

[MarcJell]

A battery powered aerator may suit your purposes just fine. Most run on d-cell batteries and will last far longer than the duration of the outage. Downside, you'll have to buy 4 of them. Up side, they're not terribly expensive and most bait shops and/or decent pet stores carry them. Worst case scenario you'll have to order them through an online retailer.

Get two battery powered air pumps, tubing, two T-connectors, 4 air stones. One pump for two tanks, tubing with a T-connector, tubing off each end to air stones in each tank.

If room temp is warm enough, you shouldn't need heaters.

I've looked up so far and will order a couple of battery operated aerators, it's not a problem wether I have to buy two or four as I don't mind the cost.

However what about the flow? Don't want to loose bacteria?
And possibly heat, weather is very unpredictable here so not really sure how hot it is going to be?

Thanks for the quick replies

Have any one bought a brand or air pump that hasn't let them down so far?

Thanks

 

[ScienceRulez]

Your biggest issue will be oxygen, get at least two battery powered air pumps with an air stone and rotate them among the 4 tanks. Ideally you should have one per tank but that would depend on your bank account.

 

[Sk8r]

Penn-Plax makes aerator pumps that go on if the power glitches. Don't know if they're available in the UK.

 

[callsign4223]

The bubblers will provide some flow. Enough to get you through this. The upflow from the bubbles is what will generate the flow.

 

[ColoReefer970]

5 hours isn't too bad anyway...I live on a very rural grid so it happens in snow storms sometimes etc...and might take a while for a crew to get out there...

You might have enough tanks and enough bank to get a car battery and inverter and a big air pump to run them all

 

[MarcJell]

Penn-Plax makes aerator pumps that go on if the power glitches. Don't know if they're available in the UK.

Is this what you're on about?
https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/172288757978

Shipping isn't estimated untill 2nd-13th September -,-

I'll be pricing up a generator for the day or even go see if I can pick one up cheap enough maybe.

May also purchase the battery aerators as well as a precaution I think.

What about light? For my corals ?

Thanks guys

 

[ScienceRulez]

Is this what you're on about?
https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/172288757978

Shipping isn't estimated untill 2nd-13th September -,-

I'll be pricing up a generator for the day or even go see if I can pick one up cheap enough maybe.

May also purchase the battery aerators as well as a precaution I think.

What about light? For my corals ?

Thanks guys

I wouldn't worry so much about the light, for one day it shouldn't hurt anything. In the wild there can be cloud cover and storms for days at a time.

 

[Sk8r]

That's a little different body on the Penn-Plax, but that's the brand and item type.

 

[NeilFox]

Get a cheap inverter and run it off a 12 volt battery or even your car. It will last at full tank power for at least a day.

 

[finewayne]

this could help for a battery powered aerator : http://www.basspro.com/Bass-Pro-Shops-Aerator/product/74343/

 

[ThRoewer]

IME small fish can handle being in an uncirculated container for quite some time (weeks). I'm currently quarantining 4 pipefish, a goby and 2 barnacle blennies in 1/2 gallon Lee's specimen containers (except for on pipefish pair, each fish has their own container) which are just hanged into other tanks to keep them at temperature. I do water changes every few days and feed primarily live food - so far no losses.
Large fish in overstocked tanks and corals are usually the ones who have issues when the power goes out.

BTW, what kind of tanks are those? They look like they would be right for my 4 Catalina gobies (which I also kept for days on end without a pump in a 1 gallon tank).