Big Scare last night!!!

[toddpolish]

Power outage last night at 5:20pm (right in the middle of the sox/yanks game ). Covered the main tank(was at 81.5deg) in blankets - I'm curing 75# of rock in 2 other rubbermaids, surrounded those in pillows and blankets. Plus I was stranded...car in the garage...electric door opener...uh oh. By 10pm (80.8 temp) I figured it would only be a couple more hours at the most, so I told my girlfriend not to worry about picking me up and taking me to home depot for something.
I wake up at 2:30am (79.9 deg) - no electricity. Wake up at 5:20am and no electricity (79.3 deg). 14-1/2 hrs later when I woke up at 7:45 (78.8deg) I started to freak out . Called a friend who picked me up - went to home depot (called first, they had 1 generator for $599...ouch! all other generators were sent down south cause of the recent hurricane). I ended up renting one for $45 a day. Up and running by 10am waiting for the fish to come out - by this time the sump water was colder than the tank water, so the tank temp went down even more to 77.2deg. Luckily my 4 fish and 2 corals made it and have eaten already.
Power didn't come on till 11:30am today.
My new LR I'm curing - that room is a colder room, so the temp went down to 75. Lost a lot of color/life on the rock. Kinda frustrating, cause it was nice looking rock (see my other post...titled: '2nd batch of LR')
Very much a nightmare. I need a backup system: either invest in a generator or a battery backup. Before the NewEngland winter hits!!!
just thought I'd share my experience. I hope you guys have backup plans, cause it's not fun going thru this if you're not prepared....

 

[scotts]

Glad to hear that you could make it through this. However just so that you know in the future, most garage doors have a release on them so that you can open them if the power is out. It is usually a cord hanging down from the bar running from your garage door opener to the garage door. Just pull on this cord and then you can manually open the door. This will release a pin that holds the garage door to the chain or gear drive, which ever one you have. The trick is to remember to push the pin back once the power comes back on. I cannot tell you how many times I have pushed the button for the garage door, hear it come on and the garage door does not move. Dooh.
Scott

 

[jmesmcm]

Glad to hear that your fish and corals made it through ok. I lost my power while at work a few weeks ago at 9:00 A.M. and it didn't come back on until 10:00 P.M. that night and it was not as fortunate. It cost me an izmaeus hog, a cleaner shrimp, and some of my acros beginning to bleach.

 

[toddpolish]

sorry to hear that, JmesMcM.
---
Scotts - I live in a condo and the garage is external. the only way in is thru the garage door itself. At least it gave me a good excuse to not go to work.

 

[nicky1.8t]

Toddpolish where in mass do you live? I live ion attleboro, and we didnt lose power, thank god

 

[jonthefb]

sorry to hear abou tyour experiences...at least you did what you could with what you had!
good luck
jon

 

[toddpolish]

nicky1.8t - I'm in Tewksbury.

 

[touchdown34]

glad to hear it all worked out. Nice to know you have good friends that will help you in a crunch.
Good move w/ the blankets and pillows. Don't know if you have a fireplace. Sometimes that will help keep the place warm. And as long as you do not put some extra blankets TOO CLOSE to the fireplace, you can replace the cold ones w/ the warm ones.
Touchdown34

 

[scotts]

OK now I understand how you could not get in the garage, sorry if I was talking to you like you were stupid. I apologize. Also I it was too bad about the game last night. I was yelling at the TV for them to take Pedro out.
Scott

 

[rolangunslinger]

I also watched the game and I wondered how much George S paid for them to leave Pedro in for the 8th.
Must have a deal with the devil.
Anyway, glad to hear that you could salvage most of your stock. Sorry for the outage.
Kevin

 

[toddpolish]

it's too painful to make this a Red Sox 'what if' thread. Red Sox Nation will be mourning for quite a while. It's best not to talk about it.

 

[scotts]

I totally understand. One sports writer wrote that it is like Love. Then you get dumped and swear off women. I kind of chuckled then I thought about myself. Many years ago the Los Angeles Kings(hockey for those of you not in Los Angeles) were in the stanley cup finals. They were up one game and ready to win the second. I let myself go and started thinking that not only might they win the cup, but they night sweep the series GO KINGS......Huh why is the game stopping. Stick what stick, what is wrong with Marty McSorley's stick. it's curved too much, whoever heard of that. They call a penalty and the Kings go on to lose the game in overtime. They never recover and lose the series. I almost ready to start watching hockey again and I cannot remember how many years ago that was.
Scott