power outage!!!!

[fishfreak2407]

on easter morning we had a power pole go down on our street, and needless to say we lost power. now my question is how long can a reef tank go without power. I read that if the corals dont have circulation they will suffocate in there own slime/mucus, so I panicked and made a make shift bubbler with some air hose and a ball pump! it worked pretty good I got some surface aggitation from it and my torch coral moved around some in the make shift current.well anyway have any of you been in this sitiuation?

thnx, fishfreak2407:)

p.s the power was out for 3 hours, after 2 hours I created the pump.

[ttomkat1]

Haven't had this happen, but I just read an article on it in the annual reef keeping magazine I think?!? (will look it up later)

But it gave a list of emergency supplies for a power outage.

---ttomkat1

[silver17jo]

I have a small nano, my power was down for about 8 hours. When I got home I panicked, everything looked dead. Shoirtly after the power was restored. Every peaice has made a come back. I too would like to know if there is any definate answer.

[Paintbug]

short term outages, i use a battery operated air pump with some air stones. a couple of these will do much better than your current setup :D. good idea in a jam though! as long as the temp doesnt drop real bad, you should be good for a few hours. i recently bought a small gas powered generator from my tank. it was $100, works great. enough for the heater, and powerheads to keep going. dont know about the lights. to be honest i hope i never find out LOL.

[Amphiprion]

Unfortunately, it varies from tank to tank. The first major threat will be oxygen deprivation. If you have a good deal of fish/mobile invertebrate mass, then this could be an immediate problem. Otherwise, a healthy tank with a light fish load can last a week or longer (if provided with, say, a cheap battery-operated air pump).

[goda]

expect more of these type of questings now that huricane season is comming ^^

a few years ago i lost power to my 55 for i think 2 days about. it was fine ( i did have an air stone tho hooke dup to a apc ups)
everything did fine


a bike pump may come in handy (easy to us) as does a batery powered drill with a paint stirer ( may want to make a guard for it so nothing gets cut up)

[scrmbld33]

how does one hook up the generator to the tank? is it manual like you plug everything in and start the motor or does it come on automatically when the power goes out?

[Scuba_Dave]

Some generators are made to auto-start & power certain breakers
This needs to be hooked up by a pofessional to prevent a Utility worker being harmed by current flowing out of your house

Some generators you start up & then plug in what you want to run

[dwagner11]

I'm not sure if it applies, but every water change that I do, I shut 100% of power off, and mostly is only about an hour, if that, but I have had it off up to 4-5 hrs (major cleaning). I have never lost anything, and recently my corals hard and soft have been thriving, almost doubling their size in less than a month. I have no expertiece in this area, but at the same time, I have had no problems, and in my current setup/situation, can see no other option. Good luck, and I hope all will work out well.

[ttomkat1]

As I posted above, try reading the article in "Marine Fish and Reef" 2006 Annual. The article was written by Randy Donowitz.

He tells his nightmare of a long poweroutage and some everyday items you can use in an emergency kit.

---ttomkat1

[goda]

auto genotators cost over 6k and then you need propane tank installed in ground. or a hook up which will be useless if somthing happens to the line lol

[fishfreak2407]

<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=7196401#post7196401 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by ttomkat1
As I posted above, try reading the article in "Marine Fish and Reef" 2006 Annual. The article was written by Randy Donowitz.

He tells his nightmare of a long poweroutage and some everyday items you can use in an emergency kit.

---ttomkat1

thats where I got the idea for the airline tubing and bike pump, worked well in a pinch. I just hope this doesnt happen again anytime soon:rollface:

[jgoodrich71]

Living in a hurricane area, my tanks over the years have been without power several times. The longest was 1 week. I never used any battery powered devices on them, and they were fine each time. A little worse for wear, but fine.

It dedends on the tank. IMO, one of the best measures is to do preventative maintenance. A tank with a lot of detritus breaking down and heavy fish load will not make it as long as a clean tank with a light bioload. If a hurricane is coming, do a good sized water change and remove as much detritus as possible.

The thing I think that got many tanks around here during Katrina was more temperature related. The tanks would get hot sitting in an unairconditioned house. Hot water can't hold as much oxygen as cooler water, so that just added to the problem.

[fishfreak2407]

1 week!!!!!!!! man I was sweating after 2 hrs:p