What are your equipment contingency plans?

[OneReef]

Do you ever think what you will do if a piece of your equipment fails? What about your skimmer pump? If it dies, will you run without a skimmer while you wait on a replacement or repair? More importantly, what about your return pump? If it dies, do you have a way to circulate water from sump to tank for filtration, aeration, and heating until you can replace it. What about lighting? If a ballast goes out, will you have no light over your tank till a new one comes in or even longer, waiting for the company to repair or replace it? A heater dies, tank temps can drops fast in winter. Just something to think about with all the money we have in our tanks, it would be tough to see something bad happen due to not having a replacement or plan in place.

I have a backup return pump in the closet, as well as an additional heater. If one of my LED pendants went out, I could remove it and slide the two others in place to spread out the light a little better in the meantime. Skimmer pump would be harder, would have to order one and wait on it I guess.

Do you have plans in place?

 

[grannybj]

I have a backup pump in the closet with an extra heater and T5 bulbs too . When my pump went out on my 8 gallon tank, I transferred all the livestock to the 90 while I waited on a new pump. Considering I am 140+ miles from the nearest salt water fish store, I do worry about the small stuff that others take for granted. I try to keep the supplies to handle emergencies close at hand.
When my skimmer pump quit, I ran skimmerless for about 4 months while I looked for a pump that would fit my housing. I just did larger water changes and all worked well. I think the hardest thing to go without was my ATO unit.It quit back in the summer last year and the replacement I bought was a dud so I was about a month without and having to add water with a bucket...what a headache. Now I have an extra ATO in the closet too.

 

[Rudolph]

To me the most critical item is an electric back up plan. If you don't have that, the rest may not matter. I have a generator, so I feel good about that (it was a must have in Florida so I brought it with me to Memphis). I have older lighing as my back up (with extra bulbs), some older replaced pumps, and a couple of heaters. Everything else I consider non-critical. The rest I feel can wait until Memfish opens their doors the next day.

 

[ReefersEdge]

Funny story. After reading this a little bit ago i got up to go to the kitchen and walked by my tank. I noticed one of my bulbs is out! Lol what the luck

 

[OneReef]

I have a generator. It was nice a few years ago when the power went out for a few days with it 110* outside. My generator ran my whole tank, some fans in the house, the refridgerator, some lamps, my modem for Internet service, the big screen TV, and a few more things. Very handy and my reef was A OK.

 

[Rudolph]

Worth its weight in gold when you need it unh?

 

[Reef264]

Good Thread

Good Thread

I've thought about this before, I have several spare tanks, I do have a spare heater, Powerhead, Return, a spare Skimmer, spare MH Bulbs, I have 2 Halides, so I could put the unbroken one in the center, while I fixed the other.

I am investing in a generator as we speak.

 

[ihavtats29]

well for me i have 2 tanks currently in a cycle plus i have a 10 gal frag tank with 4) 24w ho t-5s so once i have my 29 back in full operation and the 120 gal i will have plenty of spare room . but if anything fails kermits is just a couple blocks away

 

[Rudolph]

I've thought about this before, I have several spare tanks, I do have a spare heater, Powerhead, Return, a spare Skimmer, spare MH Bulbs, I have 2 Halides, so I could put the unbroken one in the center, while I fixed the other.

I am investing in a generator as we speak.

You can get barely used ones that people are ready to give away for a song and a dance on craigslist (tired of seeing them in their garage, or just needed them for one project).......you just need to decide what all you want to fire up during an outing. I have enough to run tanks, kitchen, family room and master bedroom/bath only because I needed it for long outages in Florida. But, you can get a smaller one just to run your tanks if you want to keep the price down. Odds are it will be large enough to keep your refrig going too (protect people and fish food )

 

[Reef264]

Rudolph,

I appreciate the advice, I will give Craig a Shout.