It's going to take a lot of time & effort to rebuild my in-laws place. No insurance on most of the stuff. The dock alone was 50,000. Most insurance companies won't insure your docks on the water anymore. It's the gamble you take for being on the water. we excepted that. Gotta live with it.
I never though of a back-up for my tanks until the black-out up north. So I did a lot of investigating into it.
I hooked all my small tanks up to a Tripp industries power inverter up to 500 watts with a deep cycle battery. It will run the filters and power heads with no problem. Luckily I didn't need the heaters cause they burn lots of watts.
I used a separate inverter with deep cycle marine battery for my 175. As soon as the power shuts off the inverters kick in automatically. Gives you about 5 or more hours to get the generator started.
I have a 5,500 watt (8500 serge) Generac gas fired generator. It ran 24/7 for the whole outage. No gas stations in the area were pumping gas. But, I had a back up 65 gallon tank in my shed (I was prepared) along with 100 gallons in my boat. I would go through about 15 gallons a day. Also you have to change the oil in the generator daily. So, I had a case of 30 wt oil too. Most people didn't no that and burned up there generators in a few days.
Most lfs around here lost all there live stock. It is sad to see the thousands of fish and corals being tossed. Lots of reef tanks died too. It's very expensive for the back up systems but, It was worth it in the long run. These systems will last for years to come. Our power cuts on and off as they do work in the area. So the inverters come in handy while I'm away at work. I suggest to everyone to invest in a back up plan. It's a great insurance and piece of mind.
Back up is something we have been looking into, courious as to what you used....
