STorm plus heat wave!

K

Kathy55g

In Memoriam
We will not have power for several days. I have airstones in all the tanks, and I am not too worried about the babies in the basement.

I worry about my breeding pair in the display tank upstairs. It is supposed to get to 105 degrees today. I tore down the display and removed all the fish and corals this morning. They are in a couple of smaller tanks in my basement where it stays about 75 with AC, and maybe will get to 80 this week without it. Air bubblers everywhere.

I decided to keep my breeding pair in their own tank with live rock and air bubblers, but no other fish. They are now in a permanent location, and I've decided to sell or give away the rest of my fish and corals.
I only spend time with the babies these days, anyway.


HOrrendous day, I hope my breeding pair will be OK, they look fine so far. They were supposed to lay eggs today, and Momma is very fat.
Kathy
 
Good luck, Kathy. Clowns are tough guys and I am sure they will be fine with your care.

If you have a good quality cooler (or a chest freezer), you may be able to pack it with ice. The ice should last at least 2 or 3 days. Then if the temp rises too high, ice in baggies will be able to reduce the temp.
 
Thanks Nicole, you sound like the voice of experience!
I think they will be oK in the basement. I should have moved them there months ago. Guess I'm not a stick hugger anymore.
K
 
LOL. I'm tearing down, too. Just no time anymore, and too many other "issues" going on right now. Well, just downsizing, not quitting. David M is taking my pairs and I'm going to keep my babies. My pairs will be in good hands!

Wish I had a basement...
 
emergency backup systems

emergency backup systems

Hi, Kathy-

We have solved our power outage problems by making our own emergency backup system for our tank. We purchased two 750W inverters (these are devices that convert DC power to 110V 60Hz AC), then bought a 120 Amp-hour battery (can get this from any auto parts store). These big batteries are rechargable. If you check the specs on your pumps, you can figure out how many hours/days you can run off the battery. In our case, we figured out that we can run two Blueline pumps plus a fan for 18 hours. You can get inverters from any electronics store (we have something called Fry's Electronics here in California). The side benefit of having this big battery is that it comes with its own charge controller, which you can use to charge your car battery if it dies - it will even tell you if your battery and/or alternator are bad! Downside is that the battery weighs ~60 lbs.

The ultimate solution will be to purchase a small solar panel with a charge controller - this will allow us to recharge the battery purely from the Sun, making us robust against long-term power failures. Since we live in California, we do have to worry about major earthquakes (the 1993 Northridge quake knocked out power for almost a week). It's good to have a solar backup system anyway, even if you don't have a tank. This is a more robust system than a gas-powered generator, since you neither have to have access to gasoline, nor do you have to store it.

My longer term plan is to install solar panels on the house and go "off the grid", but this is a bigger deal than the simple solution we've pursued so far. There are lots of reasons to do this, not the least of which is reducing the global warming which harms the oceans we love so much.

Cheers,
Amy
 
Amy, I'm looking at solar myself. I am urban (as I suspect you are) and residential systems are not off-grid, they are on net metering. So you produce twice as much energy as you need during the day and sell half back to the utility, then pull power from the grid at night using your energy credits.

By CA law, they have to give you as much $ credit per kWh as they sell energy at. So if you go with a time of use program where they charge you more during for power during the day... :D

True off-grid systems (where there is no power utility) tend to be very low power. Also, the batteries are very expensive and have to be replaced every 5-10 years.

I'm doing preliminary investigation into what it would take to outfit out entire 88 unit condo complex with submeters for each unit. We've got a LOT of south-facing roofline that is prime solar panel real estate.

Someday I will build a custom house and go 100% geothermal heating/cooling plus a small off-grid solar unit for incidental power. If rebuilding is in your list of options, check these guys out:
http://www.enertia.com/

Someday...
 
Kathy, my wishes for continued good luck. Anything I can do to help let me know!

Matt
 
Might I suggest what we have done in Florida. BUY A GENERATOR if you have more than a small tank. They are only 2000 bucks for a really good one 500-700 bucks for a cheap one, and you can run chillers, pumps, etc. if needed for days or weeks. I have also used the power inverter and deep cycle battery thing as well but they only last for few days.

Good Luck, all of Florida feels your pain.
 
Re: emergency backup systems

Re: emergency backup systems

<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=7783374#post7783374 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by kmainzer
Hi, Kathy-

We have solved our power outage problems by making our own emergency backup system for our tank. We purchased two 750W inverters (these are devices that convert DC power to 110V 60Hz AC), then bought a 120 Amp-hour battery (can get this from any auto parts store). These big batteries are rechargable. If you check the specs on your pumps, you can figure out how many hours/days you can run off the battery. In our case, we figured out that we can run two Blueline pumps plus a fan for 18 hours. You can get inverters from any electronics store (we have something called Fry's Electronics here in California). The side benefit of having this big battery is that it comes with its own charge controller, which you can use to charge your car battery if it dies - it will even tell you if your battery and/or alternator are bad! Downside is that the battery weighs ~60 lbs.
....

Cheers,
Amy
Click to expand...

ThanksAmy, really good information. I am using the 50 pound box of battery recharger unit that we keep in our cars (we have 2) with an inverter to power the minijet pump that keeps my bioballs wet. I am alternating using and recharging them.

I am manually removing water from the sump and pouring it into the fish tanks. Water flows from the overflows to the filter and bioballs. I can only do this a couple of times a day, as I am at work most of the day. But I think it effectively exchanges ammonia free water with dirty fish water.

The inverter/battery keep it wet when I am not there, and when I am sleeping. I put a chunk of live rock in each of the baby fish tanks, and have battery powered air pumps to keep the water oxygenated and moving.

All the cultures are OK. All the algae, all the rotifers, all are bubbling on battery power. It is good this happened in summer, because a power outage in winter would require heat. The basement is 62 in winter. Fortunately, our power has not gone out in winter.

None of the fish were fed yesterday. I fed a little this morning using a battery powered light to illuminate.

It was day 2 for the larvae yesterday. I ignored them, because I had broodstock about to boil. They were in the dark all day. I did
not feed them. Their temp fell to 78 degrees. They had air and that's it.

This morning in the glow of the battery light, I had no deaths, and lots of fat bellied larvae. They had only been feed once in their lives, 48 hours ago. I guess those rotifers multiplied in the tank, and larvae can see in the dark. It is miraculous!

All the cultures are OK. All the algae, all the rotifers, all are bubbling on battery power. It is good this happened in summer, because a power outage in winter would require heat. The basement is 62 in winter. Fortunately, our power has not gone out in winter.

We did lose my daughter's sickly goldfish, but I think that was inevitable. Sad for her though.

Cheers,
Kathy
 
Andy's suggestion is a good idea, you can get them cheaper, for about 350-400 depending. I got one set up to start when the power goes out.Sometimes the price is less than the loss of one brood pair.

I used these when I collected sharks to keep them...
You can get them in many sizes in marine centers.

http://www.aquamasters.com/batteryo.htm

Ed
 
Solar vs. generator:

You can purchase a 270 Watt/day solar-powered charging system for less than ~$350 from Silicon Solar. I'm going to do this rather than a generator, since I really don't want to have to worry about finding gas. If there's a big earthquake, the gas stations won't be open...
 
Kathy,

Bummer, hiope all goes well. I was actually thinking that if there was a power problem where I live, I am nto sure what I will do. Time to go back to the drawing board and see what I can coime up with.

Being in the UK, sun is not really an option. Ho Hum....


Good luck.

Steve
 
Kathy, I hope all is going well for you...hopefully you have your power back? As always, if there's ANYTHING I can do to help, just ask!

Matt
 
Power on at 7am this morning! :dance:
All fish older than 1 week are still alive, in fact, two pipefish babies that I gave up on are still swimming! They must have been able to find leftover rotifers in the dark, because they are bigger, too.

4.5 days without power is not something I ever want to do again!
 
Clown larvae took two days of massive deaths. I think it was too dark for most of them to find food, cause the deaths happened on days 3 and 4. Also their tank was unheated, 75 degrees mostly, so that could have killed them too perhaps. The remaining guys will not be metamorphosizing early this time.

Cheers,
K
 
<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=7801384#post7801384 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by mwp
Kathy, I hope all is going well for you...hopefully you have your power back? As always, if there's ANYTHING I can do to help, just ask!

Matt
Click to expand...

Thanks, Matt, actually, I think the tetraselmus culture you sent helped me. I mixed that one with nannochloropsis to feed everything. Made for a more complete nutrition profile for the clowns and the pipes and possibly the corals that got no light whatsoever.

I had no time to do painstaking siphoning, my freezer was useless anyway, so everybody got live food and a hope for the best. Thank God I keep live cultures--a whole lot less rotting going on.

Now i have to replace all my frozen food stocks. An order to Randy Reed is in the making for rotifer diet, etc.

One good thing, my rotifers hardly knew there was a power outage. They are growing like gangbusters, whatever that means!

Thanks,
K
 
I think you made it through a long power outage with flying colors, Kathy. It was 115F Saturday and 105F Sunday at my house -- in the shade -- can you imagine how that would have turned out HERE!
 
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