8 hour power outage

yossaria

Member
Hi all,
Tomorrow night the power will be shut off in my office for 8 hours due to construction in a neighboring laboratory. The problem is that my saltwater tank is housed there. I am worried that this will have a serious negative effect on my fish and corals due to lack of water circulation. Am I just being paranoid? Should I take steps to help my tank survive and, if so, what steps should be taken? Thanks for your help and suggestions!
Cheers,
Yoss
 

deejeff442

Active Member
i would worry.5-6 hrs is pushing it.
if they are working next door they must need electricity for thier work.
i would get a 100 ft.cord and find somewhere ito plug it in and hook up the ph's.the fish might be ok but i wouldnt take the chance .especially since you know it is going t happen.
 
I would get one of the 'battery back-up' units they sell for computers. As soon as the power turns off the back-up kicks on. I would at least have the heater & a power head plugged into it, that way your temp down not drop and you have water circulation. How big is your tank? They all a LOT of different size back ups.
 

scsinet

Active Member
A UPS isn't going to do you much good in this case. Assuming a 500w worth of heaters and powerheads, you'd need a huge unit to handle 8 hours.
There is no UPS made that handles that kind of runtime out of the box, unless you go massive, into the thousands of VA range.... or using a smaller UPS with external battery arrays... either is impractical to get both pricewise and in the timeframe. That's why I don't advocate UPS units for tanks... any outage that lasts long enough to harm a tank will last far longer than most UPS units will give you, plus they have a nasty habit of nuisance tripping GFIs, which we should all have on our tanks.
Here are a few suggestions that might be implementable in your timeframe...
First, if your office is as such that you can get an extension cord to the parking lot, you can buy or rent a generator. Even one of the cheap knockoff units they sell at auto parts stores, harbor freight, etc will work to run heaters and pumps. Alternatively, you can purchase a large power inverter, of say 1000w capacity. Units this large are not always the easiest to come by, but stores like Best Buy, and Fry's might stock them. Units this large also generally need to hook directly to a car battery with cables, so if you can get a cord to your car, you can pop the hood, hook the inverter right up to your battery, and leave the engine idling. The car will idle all night on probably less than 1/4 tank. I have used both of these solutions before and both work outstandingly well.
What does your company's IT staff use for backup power? Perhaps your company already has a generator or long term UPS solution. If you can get a cord to an IT wiring closet or data room, IT guys can usually be bribed with mountain dew or burgers without much hassle. If you're one of those jerks who is always whining about their computer, or installing things they shouldn't, good luck though. (sorry... sore spot
)
Plan to be with your tank the entire 8 hours. You'll need to keep an eye on things and take emergency measures if necessary. Chances are this time of year you won't have issues with heat, but you may want to have some plastic bottles like milk jugs. You can fill them with hot water from a restroom sink and float them in the tank to help keep it warm. A cordless drill with a paint stirrer works well to keep your water oxygenated, just using it a few times an hour for a few minutes helps tremendously, just don't hit the fish.
Do any of those options sound appealing?
 
J

jstdv8

Guest
I'm no expert but my heater is only 150 w and 1 koralia is only like 34 watts or something minimal. he could probably pick up a cheap 50 watt heater to put in there and run 1 power head that would be better than nothing
 

nycbob

Active Member
8 hours of outage shouldnt do much harm. cover up ur tank with a blanket to keep in the heat. imagine how long the fish and corals r in transit when shipped to u or lfs. i hv had power outages 2-3 per year of 2-10 hours. no negative effect thus far.
 

oceansidefish

Active Member
I ran the two Tunze powerheads on my tank for 7 hours off an APC power back up smaller sized one when I had my electrical panel changed out...No problems
 

xcali1985

Active Member
I really think you guys are over thinking this whole thing. An 8 hr power outage is not going to harm fish or corals. They are shipped longer than that and on a regular bases I turn mine off for 2-3 hours for maintenance and to feed my coral.
I would say keep an eye on the tank temp everything else I wouldn't worry about. Plus he said it will be at night corals will be closed up anyways. Only thing is maybe some sweeper tentacles extended out.
 

natclanwy

Active Member
I think I would just go with a battery operated air pump and air stone, they are inexpensive but are very effective at circulating the water in your tank. It can make a mess if you don't have a glass top on your tank due to the salt spray from the air bubbles popping at the surface but that can be easily remedied by using some plastic to protect any nearby walls or equipment. I would also use a blanket to help insulate the tank and keep it warm.
I have also used inverters to power my tank while the power is off, they work very well and aren't all that expensive. You should be able to find a 1000w inverter for somewhere around $100, but like SCSI said inverters that large will either need to be hooked directly to the battery with the included cables or you will need to use at least #2 wire to connect the inverter further away from the battery.
 

lovethesea

Active Member
I'm with Xcali........we were out for 2 days last spring and we spent 10 minutes every 2 or 3 hours with whisks stirring up the water. With that said the temp was not an issue. 2 years ago we had a horrid ice storm and we could not keep the tank warm enough no matter what we did due to the negative temps. We lost a lot due to the cold.
 

socal57che

Active Member
I could go a while with no heater where I live. If it's going to be -15 degrees F, you may have an issue.
You didn't list a location, so I really can't help you.
What happened to the user profiles that showed equipment and stocking? I really miss being able to look at it to offer peeps help. I have no idea what the new faces have as far as tank size, stock list, equipment and so on.
 

scsinet

Active Member
There is a big difference when using UPS units between just using them to run powerheads and having to run heaters.
If it were powerheads, it would be a different story, but this time of year, it may be difficult to control the temperature for an 8 hour power loss without heaters, which represent a serious amount of current draw (unless it's a nano or something... I guess I should have asked how big the heaters were) - especially when you consider that the power outage is going to take out the building's heat as well.
On a larger note, I'm shocked by the number of knowledgable people on this thread who are of the "don't worry, It'll probably be okay" mentality. Maybe it's just me, but I look at the idea of having an swf tank and not investing in a backup plan as similar to buying a car and never bothering to do the maintenance... it's just a bad practice. "It'll probably be okay" is frankly not good enough as far as I'm concerned when it comes to the potential to lose thousands in livestock and sweat equity.
IMO we should all have a plan in place to handle a long term power outage for our tanks. It should be something thought about and tested ahead of time, not something we think about the day before a power failure, or after the power failure has begun, when it's too late.
 

florida joe

Well-Known Member
Just my 2 cents. A long term power outage would require a contingency plan. So we all should have one in place. BUT in this particular case the hobbyist has to do what is needed NOW. Basically the major concern is heat loss and oxygen depletion. IMO he should have some heat packs ready in a insulated container monitor the temp for the eight hours add and remove the heat packets to maintain the temp and agitate the water at the surface of his tank for gas exchange
 
Originally Posted by SCSInet
http:///forum/post/3213400
IMO we should all have a plan in place to handle a long term power outage for our tanks. It should be something thought about and tested ahead of time, not something we think about the day before a power failure, or after the power failure has begun, when it's too late.
I agree, and I probably only have 1/1000th invested into my tank compared to most out there! I have 3 deep cycle marine batteries charged and ready to go with inverters for filters/powerheads. Heat would be from hot water in sealed containers (gas stoves dont need power :)) If the outage was something serious for a longer period I have a generator I can 'borrow' to power the lights for a short duration.
 

xcali1985

Active Member
All depends on what most people consider long term power outage. I don't consider 8 hours with long term. I just think a lot of people panic and over analyze situations. Just remember this situation is going to be happening at night and the chances of anything suffering is minimal as long as heat is retained. basically put the tank into shipment mode.
 

nycbob

Active Member
unless u live in a rural area, most power outages r fixed with a reasonable amount of time. i live on long island, so power outages r normally fixed within 3-4 hours.
 

florida joe

Well-Known Member
Originally Posted by nycbob
http:///forum/post/3213666
unless u live in a rural area, most power outages r fixed with a reasonable amount of time. i live on long island, so power outages r normally fixed within 3-4 hours.
Yea spend many summers in Brentwood they usually got the hamsters back on the wheels within a few hours
 
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