Power outage-20 hours of hell!

toadbaby

toadbaby

New Member
Like the earlier post, I live in Kansas (Lawrence to be exact) and just made it thru a 20 hour power outage. I have never been so stressed in my life! I have a 90 gall reef and 29 gall reef both of which are packed with corals, inverts and fish.
the temps on both dropped to 70 and most of my hard corals looked like they were dead. Then my husband and I got a brilliant idea - we ran scalding hot tap water into ziplock freezer bags and floated them in the tanks. You have to stir the water to get everything warm but we got the temp back to 74. Everything looked better.
Then we pulled a McGyver. We took a foot pump to blow up inflatable mattresses, melted the end of silicone airline/tubin and attached it to the foot pump nozzle and put an airstone on the other end of the tubing. We pumped and pumped till our quads are the size of Arnolds.
Saved everything but my gorgeous coral beauty and my personable cleaner shrimp.
Thank god!
By the way - sears sells a camping generator that will handle 1000 watts for $500. After all that stress that seems cheap! All my previous power outages have been a few hours but now that I have tons of money at stake they last forever!
 
toadbaby

toadbaby

New Member
I have not bought the generator yet. Probably in the next few days.
I would worry about using a computer backup though - we have them on all our computers at work and they seem pretty worthless. Maybe I just don't understand what they are supposed to do.
I think generators may be the best for a long time period. the little one I am going to get runs for 6 hours on 1 1/2 gallons of gas!
 
angief

angief

Member
Computer PSU's are only meant for short term use unless you are megga rich and can afford the ones which have like 50 truck batteries... The generator sounds a safer investment to me. Here's hoping you won't need to use it though , that must have been a nightmare.
 
nm reef

nm reef

Active Member
12 + hour power outages must be a reef keepers worst fear.....I know its mine.........we should all look into some type of back-up power to hold us through those nightmares.........I may start getting more serious about setting one up myself after reading this post.......sorry to hear about the loss of the coral beauty....I'd be devestated if I lost mine.....absolutely beautiful fish and full of personality.......here are some wings for your beauty <img src="graemlins//angel.gif" border="0" alt="[angel]" />
 
cyn

cyn

Member
So sorry to hear of your losses! But it was very nice of you to post your innovative ideas for us all to learn from. I especially like the idea for the make shift heater. I would have never thought of that! Please post if you do get the generator, I am interested in getting one and am not sure of what size/brand to purchace. More wings for your beauty!
cyn <img src="graemlins//angel.gif" border="0" alt="[angel]" />
 
bizkit

bizkit

Member
I live in MI so we lost power last night. I dunno if it was cold during your outage. My one nano went down under 60 F degrees. (back up to 74 at the moment) Thank God our power was just restored. I don't think they could take another night of this s*it. But I am happy to say all is well in my reef. But I agree having a backup up for say your heater would be a good idea. Lighting I can live with being out for a day or so.
 
hillbilly

hillbilly

Member
I just went through a 30 hr outage. I wasen't home until the last couple of hrs. 28 hrs no circulation and temp dipped to 60F From my normal 80-82F. Ran out and got 2 battery powered air pumps meant for minnows for fishing. This got a little circulation going. Began removeing a little water, heating it on the stove and returning it to the tank being careful to raise the temp slowly.
I had only been doing this for a short time when the power came back on. I dropped the temp setting on my heater so the temp would not rise too fast and have been nurseing it up. Have it up to 70 now.
Lost one fish, a firefish goby and one hermit as far as I can tell. My large brittle star is alive but moveing very slowly and won't eat. Hopefuly it's metabelism is still slowed. He does seem to move better hour by hour.
All the corals seem to be in decent shape. Just have to wait it out and hope for no serious long term effects.
Hillbilly
 
lu

lu

Member
Toadbaby, after I posted a response to your message yesterday about losing power (and I'm so sorry about your losses) I lost power here too. It was only off for 4 hours here but it was the first time I had ever gone through something like that and hope by the next time it happens, I'll be ready for it with a generator. We lose power too dang much to NOT have a back-up of some kind.
I wound up with no losses and found my fish are a lot more active in cooler water. I have been keeping my temp at 80 but have turned it down to 78-79 since. My cleaner shrimp and fish were a riot to watch. They were all waiting in line to be cleaned by the shrimp...it was awesome..LOL
( I had lots of time to watch them since I was standing over the tank constantly pouring water in to keep up the air and circultaion. It was a mess but a great piece of knowledge that I now have in my repritoire...... :D
 
broomer5

broomer5

Active Member
Been there too - no fun at all.
Sounds like you guys were very resourceful Toadbaby.
Got a gas powered generator at Sears - it was on sale plus the Craftsman Club discount ( addicted to Craftsman :p ).
I keep it in the garage, went to the Depot and bought a bunch of long extension cords and power strips. On power loss - just open the garage door, connect to earth ground rod that I pounded down into the ground, fire the generator up - and good to go. Both tanks filtration pumps/powerheads hum along as normal, and also run the fridge/freezer.
Generators are not cheap - but neither are my corals, fish, rock and freezer foods.
We get by with a blanket and gas fireplace.
 
kdlbem

kdlbem

Member
Sorry to hear what happened, Toadbaby. I hate to hear about stuff like that.
Also had to laugh at broomer's last sentence, isn't it amazing what we'll suffer through, just as long as the fish are okay? We went two summers without A/C in our last house, but the minute the tank got over 80 deg., off we went to sears to buy one of the units you can stick in a window. <img src="graemlins//urrr.gif" border="0" alt="[urrr]" />
Again, sorry about your loss.
B
 
tnr

tnr

Member
This has to be the worst thing.Going on 25 hours w/o power.my 90 gal reef is looking very unhappy.Got my invents and what corals i could out and are at parents house.Temps drop down to 65.Had to leave work twice yesterday,almost pulled an all nighter.To warm the water every 3-4 hours on the stove.going back home to do a 50% water change.Time to create a back up plan.
Good luck to all with this problem.
 
K

kaytiarafaith

Guest
I actually have nothing to add,, but I see 2 other kansans on ,, and Im saying howdy...I dont see many people from Oz,,,and i come here,,,and good lord there's 2 of ya??? strange...welp happy fish...watching? <img src="graemlins//urrr.gif" border="0" alt="[urrr]" />
 
bizkit

bizkit

Member
I live in Wayne (by Metro Airport). There is guy who lives across te street that has a 125G. He knew I had a tank. HE asked if I could heat some buckets of his corals. I told him no, and I ran a extension cord over to his house so he can ge this tank runnin again. :) I was over there a few mins ag and he did not lose a thing!
Wahooo...
 
broomer5

broomer5

Active Member
Cool bizkit
What goes around comes around - that was really decent of you to help him out like that !
:)
 
justinl

justinl

Member
You know as far as heat loss goes you could get those heat packs that you crunch up to activate that last for a few hours and then you have to boil them to get them back to their original state so you can reuse them.
If you have about 5 of those maybe you could add a little heat to your tank since they are plastic and water resistant. Of course they make bigger ones than in the picture below.

As far as air/water circulation goes coleman sells a battery operated air pump for inflating/deflating air mattreses that could be used to add air and circulation to the tank.

Just my 2 cents.
 
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