Share With Me Your Backup Solutions..

[hark]

Given all my investment in equipment and more importantly my livestock I figure it is time to add a little disaster recovery planning on my tank.

I signed up for the tesla power wall, but that will be over a year away before it's available so I need something in the meantime.

Let me hear (or better send me photos) of your setups and what you wished you did differently - if anything

Thanks!

 

[Sewerat]

My thought is this, how long, how often does you house go without power? My place, next to never, so my plan..... Do nothing. Honestly.
Early this year maybe February my hydro went out at about 1:30pm and never came on until 4am. That is the longest I've ever been without hydro my tank was sitting still for that time, it dropped in temp from about 20° to I think it was 16° which was the current room temp of my house. I did at some point go into the basement and take a couple pails of water from the sump and pour them into the DT just to add a bit of air into the mix. But that's it. Btw nothing lost in that immediate future.

So like I said how often do you go without hydro for 12 or more hours?

If I do I have more pressing issues then just my tank. I'm in the country where everything needs hydro, water, heat, lights, sewage.

 

[Nonuser]

I have a straw and my lungs. But seriously unless out in the country it's not usually more than a few hours

 

[RWH]

I have nothing in place at the moment. Sewerat makes a good point...if it goes out for more than 12 hours, I'm not sure that the tank would be my first concern. I have contemplated getting a UPS that could run the heater and air pump OR just getting a 12 volt battery and air pump to circulate the water should we lose power for a while.

 

[TORX]

For the most part you should be fine. Things sit in bags for a day or two with no light and just ambient temperatures. I have no back up planned. The only time I am concerned is in the winter months. hot water in a 2 liter helped a lot

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[Jesse biocubebeginner]

My buddy got his electrical panel hooked up for a generator. Seems pretty slick. Power goes out. Fire up the generator. Good to go.


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[Joshbrookkate]

I was hoping my husband would move on his plan to get a generator but it's not going to happen in the near future so I just bought 2 battery powered air pumps for my 75g, just in case.

 

[Pistol]

generator, keeps the tank, fridge, furnace, hot water and entertainment going.

 

[averhoog]

Generator for long outages and battery backup keeps the main pump and heater running for about two hours when you figure how much it cost in losses the thousand spent is well with it and I can also run all appliances and furnace with it aswell

 

[BigReefer]

you could always cuddle your fish .... body heat does help to keep ppl warm why not fish!!

 

[reeferkeeper420]

Depends on the size of tank to... smaller tanks drop in temp alot quicker than persay a 150g and up. But like everyone else said its not usually a big deal... even tho when i lose power for 15mins i freak out lol. A good back up would be a delay timer for your skimmer so when the power does come back on, your skimmer doesnt go crazy and overflow everywhere. If you have ecotech pumps just buy the battery back up if your concerned about making sure your waters stays oxygenated...not sure if oxygenated is a word, if its not we'll add it to the urban dictionary lol.

 

[hark]

I

My buddy got his electrical panel hooked up for a generator. Seems pretty slick. Power goes out. Fire up the generator. Good to go.


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m thinking this is how I will go.

 

[hark]

I r

Depends on the size of tank to... smaller tanks drop in temp alot quicker than persay a 150g and up. But like everyone else said its not usually a big deal... even tho when i lose power for 15mins i freak out lol. A good back up would be a delay timer for your skimmer so when the power does come back on, your skimmer doesnt go crazy and overflow everywhere. If you have ecotech pumps just buy the battery back up if your concerned about making sure your waters stays oxygenated...not sure if oxygenated is a word, if its not we'll add it to the urban dictionary lol.

through my apex I have this setup so everything comes back online a little after each other for this reason

 

[hark]

I appreciate all the advice of don't worry, but I have lost an entire tank to a power outage during the big summer outage back in 2002 I believe it was....so it can happen, will it again..likely not, but not worth the risk to me.

I'm also not around much so knowing that things will keep working and I don't need to be there is important. One of the reasons I could justify the investment in the apex, ato and auto fish feeder was for this.

So for me I will be seeing the tank up on a generator with an auto transfer switch....to be honest if the power goes out for 12 hours as long as my family is safe, the fish tank IS the only thing I worry about

 

[heath]

I've not had hydro go out for any length of time but I did have my furnace fry one winter and it took 3 days, I wrapped my tank to keep the heat in..

 

[Sewerat]

So to get a generator for ultimate back up. It needs to be, auto start with collapsible circuit, natural gas powered, and wired into your house breaker system, to a dedicated panel. You're gonna pay a pretty penny for that, if you don't get all of that, it will only work if you're home to start it, switch it, and fuel it up every few hours.

Yes the big outage of 2002 was huge, so would have been any of the major ice storms. Again I look at it as this. How frequently does it happen where I live.? Is the full pull auto genie worth 5g? Not in my place

 

[TORX]

I started pricing out systems a when we had those bad snow storms this winter. Was going to cost close to $20,000 installed. Not in my budget. A loss would be devastating, but I can't afford that.

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[scubasteve]

i remember that storm and lost a tank as well. i want to get a small solar and wind generator solely for my tanks. not just for emerg but all the time.

i do worry tho knowing i have 1000's in livestock if something happened i would be devastated has been over 3 years of collecting let alone reefing

 

[TORX]

Same expense to set up solar :/ I wanted to do that project as our roof has direct sun all day.

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[TORX]

Several years ago I worked customer assistance for a cable company in the states.

Cust: My cable isn't working
Me: (insert empathy, get customers information)
Me: Your service is currently affected by the state of emergency your city is in from the mass flooding. There is no power to most of your state.
Cust: I know, but my cable isn't working.
Me: Is your TV on? (a little sarcastic)
Cust: Yes.
Me: (pauses confused)
Cust: I know the power is out, I have a generator and it has 2 plugs on it. I have the TV and cable box plugged in. I just found out that the cable was out because I unplugged the kids Playstation so I could watch my shows and low and behold...no cable.
Me: (pauses confused)...(you can imagine how the rest of the conversation went)