You Gotta Hear About Our Power Outage Last Night!!!

[ohiorn67]

Woke up at 12:50 last night to big beeping noises and was a nervous wreck. Our 90 /gallon setup is only about 6 weeks old but about 3500.00 worth of equipment not to mention our gorgeous new clown fish and corals and more. My husband at the last minute of setup a few weeks ago put on a battery backup unit (I complained because it was so big and heavy and was under the cabinet...NEVER AGAIN). It saved us last night!! We plugged in the filter/powerheads AND heater for the night and prayed. We had never used this box before (bought 2 at auction last year) and were not even sure how long each box would last, so we made sure to only put the necessaries on it to keep our tank safe. It ran 2 hours and starting beeping again....thank goodness we had another charged unit down in our basement and we switched them out for more than another hour of no power. Meanwhile my house was getting chilly because even though we had gas heat, the fans could not push the heat and I am sure we would have lost heat quick in the tank. THANK GOODNESS that the power came back on 3 1/2 hours later. I wanted to write a story that would at least not be a sad ending here BUT also make everyone aware of the importance of these backup batteries. I told my hubby I will never complain again about his tech electronics he wants to buy again because he saved my tank!:cheer: :jumping: :joy: :hilarious

 

[foshizle]

wowow im glad that had a good ending also.i will have to look into a battery backup thanks for sharing and good luck

 

[ohiorn67]

you are welcome. Best investment we ever made were these backups and I did not even know it. I think we might even look into a backup generator. Love my tank and the idea of losing it was awful. I am not sure how long they would have survived without these backups.

 

[turningtim]

Wow! Never even crossed my mind! Is this the same kind of unit as what you put on a computer?

 

[ohiorn67]

yes, as a matter of fast my hubby is a computer programmer. He loves buying techo stuff. He had always wanted these and one day we went to an office place closing for business and bought these cheap. They are like brand new and worked fantastic for us for the first time last night. The brand that we have is A.P.C. It says on there www.apc.com for more information. We got 2 hours out of the first one and almost the same out of the second one but then the power came back on. I am telling you...I was flipping out last night and my husband was unconcerned...was truly amazing. It is always down there hooked up to it all......very loud beep when it went into battery mode. Like i said earlier in the post, we did not know for sure how long we would get so unplugged the skimmer and lights from it so these would not suck up any power ....keep filter and heater and pH's on. All doing great today. Last night we had JUST put in 2 sets of new mushrooms a crab and our first feather duster..and all are fine. whew!

 

[turningtim]

Excellent! That is the same brand that I have on my puter! My Dad is a comp geek and finds these things all over at auctions and such. If the batteries are dead he just replaces the battery from one of those battery stores and it's like new!
Thanks again for the info! Need to call "The Dad" and see if he's got a spare.
Tim

 

[benj2112]

Glad you had a happy ending. I would get that generator too. You never know how long the power might be out and you might run out of battery juice.

 

[ohiorn67]

oh yes, but what we have discovered is to just start the car up and we have a connector for the car lighter to plug in the one we use up and alternate them.....at least until we decide to go the generator route. I just am so attached to my clowns already I was on a mission to save my babies last night!