Reefers.. What's your contingency plan?

[Threelittlefish]

What backup do you have in place to power your tank in an extended power outage?

[Marcalo]

I use a car battery hooked up to a power inverter attached to a board to run my tank and you can just charge it off your car / truck at idle speed for a little while as well if need be. you will want to mount it to a board so as not to drain the battery by placing it on carpet or concrete should check it often and trickle charge as needed to keep it alive and at full charge.

[SaltieG]

Some battery powered air pumps and a gas stove to heat up water if need be. Yeah its not a great plan but it would work for awhile in the event of a power outage. Around this area our power very very rarely goes out and if it does its not for very long. Not enough to really justify a generator and if I were to buy a generator I would be sure to buy one that could run the necessities of my tanks and a few other appliances around the house.

[DivineStler]

I just go Russian Roulette style. Been a good 20 years since I remember a power outage that last more than 5 or 10 minutes. Knock on wood...

[bwiele]

During a 36 hour outage in February I went to Home Depot and spent $500 for a gas generator. I figured it was better than losing $2,000 worth of stuff in the tank. Ironically, 2 weeks later, power went out for 48 hours, so I used it a second time. This is after no outages over a 10-year period, other than the big NYC blackout a few years ago...

[Falconeer]

Originally Posted by DivineStler

I just go Russian Roulette style. Been a good 20 years since I remember a power outage that last more than 5 or 10 minutes. Knock on wood...

+1

The only time I remember going without power recently was a few years ago when the temps were 100+, and some squirrels chewed on the wires for my block.

I would imagine that in that case, my temp would've been ok, and if anything I would've had to cool it down. My corals would have to deal with it as if it were a two-day blackout.

The only issue I could see would be the flow.

[Bucksnort]

I bought a used 5500 watt generator on Craig's List. It sits in my garage just like it sat in the the guy's that sold it to me. I have a transfer switch outside my house by the meter socket to feed my electric panel and I can run several things at once. If there were an outage in the winter, I can run my boiler to keep my whole house warm, my fridge and freezer to save my food from spoiling, sump pump to keep my basement from flooding, my tank, and probably a room with lights.

If you lose power more than a few hours, you really should have a plan in place for not just your tank but for your food in the freezer, flooding, and heat.

[dschnepf]

18000 Kw standalone generator hardwired into a seperate fuse panel with an automatic trip switch that starts it up in the event of a power outage.

It runs the tank and half the house on natural gas for as long as needed, has saved me countless thousands of dollars during power outages , tornados , freak storms and general DTE stupidity.

Invested $2500 installed for piece of mind and lights when the rest of the neighborhood lights candles!

[luisgo]

I live in Puerto Rico and we have storms and Hurricanes every year. For that reason my backup plan is very important.

I have a UPS that operates three Koralias and a powerhead in the sump for around 8 hours. The nice thing is that the pumps will continue to operate instantly. For longer blackouts I have a Honda generator that was purchased used from a local classified ads. The best generator, super quiet.

[natewils]

I have a Whole house gen set if that goes out well..... I do have a 8500watt gen set
I may need to do more planning lol

[sdc19982002]

Ups and generator. And just a side note for those who have generators, make sure yoiu use fuel stabilzer.

[cloak]

I don't have one. I kinda live close to a fault line. If it's gonna go, it's gonna go...

[jc-reef]

Like luisgo from P.R., I too have to deal with hurricanes and have a back up generator in the garage to run the necessities (i.e, a/c, sat/TV, fridge, and the reef tank..). The UPC is a good idea for the short outages during bad storms....gonna invest in one.

[Threelittlefish]

Ha.... I'm from Vero Beach!

[ludnix]

I have a backup generator that can power the tank and refrigerator. I do not usually worry about it though unless it's been over 3-4 hours without power.

[Dino]

My tank went without power for a full 24 hours during the beginning of winter once without a hitch. The corals and fish didn't care, as soon as the power came back on they were swimming around like nothing had happened. They were sorta low on the priority list, more important was keeping the house warm enough to keep pipes from freezing.

We've since moved and now not nearly as worried about power outages. They still happen, this area is prone to early fall snow storms before the trees have lost their leaves which just strips limbs from trees and breaks power lines. Being in town though we're going to get our power restored faster than the rural areas. Half the problem before was we lived so far from anybody else we occasionally got *forgotten* about. Besides, one of our current neighbors works for the power company and our current house is insulated about 100 times better than our old one. And if for some reason there was an extended power outage we do have a big diesel generator in storage that could nearly run our entire house.