Well, I had a bit of a scare this morning. I had already arrived at work when I received a phone call from home that we had lost power. It turns out the entire sub-division was out including the elementary school and the gas station at the corner. Needless to say, my thoughts ran quickly to my tanks and how/what I was going to do to protect my Burundi Colony, My South American ank, and Tropheus Moliros tank. I drove all the way back home and started calling places to find alternate power sources (generator or even a battery powered air pump). As soon as I found a temporary solution, the power kicked back on after only 45 minutes of being out.

Thank heavens for our power company having such quick response. Still don't know what happened, but all my little friends are safe and I'm back at work.

Z-guy

Time to buy a battery air pump just to play it safe.

Forget the hospital and old's folk home down the street... save the FISH!!!!

Sounds like I need to prepare for that scenario also...

Azoo makes the only battery powered air pump I know of that actually runs on electricity like a regular pump, but then kicks over to battery power automatically if the power goes out. It is the $50 one, not the cheap ones, but it seems it will power two sponge filters in a big tank. It runs for about 20 hours if memory serves me. I bought their cheap battery pumps because doctor foster smith told me they kick on automatically too. LIES. the cheap ones are good for moving, or if you are not gone for too long. What good is a battery powered pump though if you have an overstocked tank and it doesn't automatically turn on, or if you are on vacation/out of town etc.

Time to get a generator.

as airpumps are quite low wattage, what i have on standby is a cheap 200w invertor and use a standard 12v car battery, my car has a twin battery system so can charge one up each day if power is out for long.

Power outages can be quite scary... you never really know how long it will last...

I myself have been in similar situations. I found that using UPS (Uninterruptible Power Supply) the same ones we use for computers, are the most convenient and cost efficient way of preventing fish loss during power outages. These units automatically kick in when the power goes out and it also help protect all devices connected to it from power surges as well.

I have UPS's setup for all my tanks. I have unit running on my 6' display tank for over 12 hours and there are 2 Eheim 2217 filters and 1 Eheim 400 airpump (44W in total) connected to it and that only drained 50-60% of the battery.

The only main drawback with UPS units is that the battery needs to be replaced every 3-5 years. That being said it's a small price to pay.

I have attached a pic of my UPS (white unit with the LCD screen) setup below. I only connect essentials to the UPS. Hope the helps.




Cheers,
Mark

Thats a great set-up. I will look into those at my local computer store.

Front73
I tried the computer UPS on mine when the power went out and it only lasted 10 minutes. Should have not run the filters and only the heat and air?? Would that have made it run longer

K9

Connecting the heater would have drained the UPS very quickly. My heater is 300W and my UPS would be lucky to last 30minutes with it connected. Not connecting the heater would increase your battery time. Also the size of your UPS will determine your runtime.

That's why I only connect the essentials like the filter and airpump. And if I find the outage is going to last for several hours I would disconnect the filters and just have the airpump running.

Here a link for calculating load and runtime. It's designed for computers but it will give you a general idea.

http://www.apc.com/tools/ups_selector/index.cfm

If you have to have the heater hooked up a generator would definitely be the go. A 4 stroke generator is the way to go.

Cheers.

I have about a dozen of those little bait bucket aerator things on hand. Not enough to run all my tanks but good enough for a few hours without power. Happens a lot in my town. I plan on getting a generator before hurricane season for my fish and the fridge

Thanks for the info Front73 !!