STorm plus heat wave!
- Thread starter Kathy55g
- Start date
Well, you must mean "What can you do to be better prepared when it happens again?"
'Cause even I cannot prevent a thunderstorm with 90 mph winds, falling 100 year old sycamore trees, and power outages, much less heat waves.
1. I will not have a tank upstairs. My basement stays cool no matter what, so that's where all tanks will go from now on. If we have a power outage in winter, I will need a generator to heat the water. Now in summer, once everything was downstairs, I kept it all alive with battery operated air pumps. But it was on the edge of being too cool. Water got to 74 F degrees. We have not lost power in winter for 15 years.
2. I should get a battery operated pump as Edgar advised.
3. I need a larger watt power inverter and possibly a marine battery. I would also like to get a solar powered recharger. It would have come in handy.
What saved me:
1. Bubble boxes--the kind that fishermen use to keep minnows alive in the bucket.
Very cheap and essential. Get the ones that take 2 D cells. They worked for a couple of days straight. Also the B11 silent air ones that come on automatically when the power goes off. Buy enough of these to cover the essential tanks at your home. Then buy 4 or 5 bubble boxes. You will use them. Also have on hand lots of extra airline tubing and valves, and D batteries.
2. Quart ziplock freezer bags. Putting on gloves when your hands are wet or sweaty is impossible. The bags protected my hands from bristle worms when I was moving all that rock in 100 degree non-airconditioned weather.
3. Hot water in 64 oz bottles, sealed. I set one in each tank to warm the water.
4. Minijet 606 and non kink tubing. Used it with my dinky power inverter to keep the bioball wet/dry ....wet. Also had it going to each tank in my system by turns so the water would drain to my sump thru the filter. Got a little water exchange there.
The minijet uses like 5 watts, so it ran for hours on the inverter and jump-start battery.
5. Extra 18 gallon tubs. Used them to transfer rocks, corals and water, partially filled. Husband used them to transfer the contents of our refrigerator and freezers to the dumpster, so nothing would leak on his van. Becomes a tank in a pinch. Also good for mixing water.
Things that did not work as expected:
Battery operated T5 lights. 12 inches. Consumed batteries after a couple of hours. Unreliable.
Cheers,
Kathy
'Cause even I cannot prevent a thunderstorm with 90 mph winds, falling 100 year old sycamore trees, and power outages, much less heat waves.
1. I will not have a tank upstairs. My basement stays cool no matter what, so that's where all tanks will go from now on. If we have a power outage in winter, I will need a generator to heat the water. Now in summer, once everything was downstairs, I kept it all alive with battery operated air pumps. But it was on the edge of being too cool. Water got to 74 F degrees. We have not lost power in winter for 15 years.
2. I should get a battery operated pump as Edgar advised.
3. I need a larger watt power inverter and possibly a marine battery. I would also like to get a solar powered recharger. It would have come in handy.
What saved me:
1. Bubble boxes--the kind that fishermen use to keep minnows alive in the bucket.
Very cheap and essential. Get the ones that take 2 D cells. They worked for a couple of days straight. Also the B11 silent air ones that come on automatically when the power goes off. Buy enough of these to cover the essential tanks at your home. Then buy 4 or 5 bubble boxes. You will use them. Also have on hand lots of extra airline tubing and valves, and D batteries.
2. Quart ziplock freezer bags. Putting on gloves when your hands are wet or sweaty is impossible. The bags protected my hands from bristle worms when I was moving all that rock in 100 degree non-airconditioned weather.
3. Hot water in 64 oz bottles, sealed. I set one in each tank to warm the water.
4. Minijet 606 and non kink tubing. Used it with my dinky power inverter to keep the bioball wet/dry ....wet. Also had it going to each tank in my system by turns so the water would drain to my sump thru the filter. Got a little water exchange there.
The minijet uses like 5 watts, so it ran for hours on the inverter and jump-start battery.
5. Extra 18 gallon tubs. Used them to transfer rocks, corals and water, partially filled. Husband used them to transfer the contents of our refrigerator and freezers to the dumpster, so nothing would leak on his van. Becomes a tank in a pinch. Also good for mixing water.
Things that did not work as expected:
Battery operated T5 lights. 12 inches. Consumed batteries after a couple of hours. Unreliable.
Cheers,
Kathy
Luis A M
Premium Member
Kathy,this works great for me.
http://www.reefcentral.com/forums/showthread.php?s=&threadid=830269&highlight=batteries
Good luck
http://www.reefcentral.com/forums/showthread.php?s=&threadid=830269&highlight=batteries
Good luck
David M
New member
Not in any way picking on Kathy here, just want to use this as an example of how friggin' spolied we are here in America. After hurricane Marylin in '95 we had no power for 4 MONTHS on St Thomas. You just deal with it, it's not that hard. Electricity is a luxury, not a necessity.
If it's really a hardship for you there are "smart" things you can do when when shopping for a home. Here in La Mesa we bought on the same feed as the police station, fire station and city gov't complex. Never had more than a momentary glitch and we are exempt from orchestrated "rolling blackouts"
Hospitals are even better, buy on the same feed as a hospital and you will never lose power 
Commercial inner city is not too bad, I pity anyone in "the burbs" that doesn't have a generator. Very low priority for utility companies as there are very few life safety issues. I happen to be a liscensed electrician (30+ years). I laugh my arse off when people call me with emergencies like the porch lights are out
Hi Luis,
Couldn´t see your air pumps setup.Seems like pics weren´t there for me to see. If it´s just aanother weird problem of my computer/internet conection could you PM me them ?
Thanks,
Anderson.
_____________________Editing__________________________
Sorry Luis ! Yeah another weird pc problem....
Now I can see them.
Andeson.
Couldn´t see your air pumps setup.Seems like pics weren´t there for me to see. If it´s just aanother weird problem of my computer/internet conection could you PM me them ?
Thanks,
Anderson.
_____________________Editing__________________________
Sorry Luis ! Yeah another weird pc problem....
Now I can see them.
Andeson.
David M
New member
Been looking around and found this, affordable and will certainly run a few air pumps (of course you need an inverter and battery too
). This seems to be a good site for a DIY UPS project.
http://www.batterystuff.com/battery-chargers/12-volt/marine-chargers/CK150.html
). This seems to be a good site for a DIY UPS project. http://www.batterystuff.com/battery-chargers/12-volt/marine-chargers/CK150.html
spk
Premium Member
Kathy,
i am dreading going home at the moment. In the UK there have been reported temperatures of inexcess of 100 F and I am not sure how the fish room as survived yet.
The tank in the house has struggled to stay below 30C but so far all things seem fine. No loss of stock.
At least I do not have anything in the fish room yet! Need to look at some serious option for cooling in there. Will be starting a search for some good DIY chillers soon.
Take care and keep us posted on what you decide to do.
Steve
i am dreading going home at the moment. In the UK there have been reported temperatures of inexcess of 100 F and I am not sure how the fish room as survived yet.
The tank in the house has struggled to stay below 30C but so far all things seem fine. No loss of stock.
At least I do not have anything in the fish room yet! Need to look at some serious option for cooling in there. Will be starting a search for some good DIY chillers soon.
Take care and keep us posted on what you decide to do.
Steve
