Emergency Backup Plan......

In my case we never have power outages that last more than 4 hours, I have often thought of setting up a generator, but I'n my mind there isn't a real good back-up plan that is economical a all for your fish.
Dave

You can get fancy and get a...uh duh...brain cramp (getting old sucks!)...thing that is a battery but plugs into the wall and kicks in when the power goes out. Many ppl have them on their computers. Should last a couple hours depending on what you have hooked into it.
Personally, I have a car battery on hand and a "Bait Saver" pump from Walmart ($20 U.S.) that I modified so that it will sit right into my tank. Inflow is at the bottom, outflow along the surface. Of course you need to be home with something like this, but our power is pretty reliable. I originally made an extension so that I could run the line out the window to my truck if need be.
Should the power go out, and you're using an airstone or similar setup to what I have, it's best to pull the media out of your filter and let it sit in the tank itself (cotained somehow). If you have the backup battery that everything is plugged into, just continue on with life as usuall.
If the power is only out for an hour +/-, I wouldn't do anything.

HTH

You might want to take a look at this thread over in the equipment/DIY forum. Beviking, the word you're looking for is UPS - Uninterruptible Power Supply.

YES! Thanks cgrabe. Man that was bothering me! And I just saw that thread in DIY the other day. Or was it a week...year? Getting old sucks!

Those UPS things rule, they will power a fully loaded computer for serveral hours and those things can consume massive amounts of power so a filter, heater etc really shouldnt cause any problems.

There not cheap though so maybe the DIY solution is worth considering

O.k.. Just out of curiosity, I'm going to borrow the UPS from the computer and plug my tank stuff into it and see how long it goes. This won't be until late next week but I'll let you know the results. To be continued...

fish only

On my large fish only tank, I have a battery powered airstone that comes on when the power is out. Too bad I left it turned off last time I changed water...

This morning I noticed the clock on the coffemaker flashing, eventually I noticed the lack of filters on the big cichlid tank. The backup up bubbler wasn't running or I'd have noticed sooner. I tested the GFI and found that it had popped. Maybe when the deck was pressurewashed yesterday at noon, maybe late at night after dinner when the counter was cleaned up. Odds are the filter was off for many hours. When I started it up, there was no cloud of junk from the canister filters. I added enough Prme to the tank to detox any ammonia spike and observed no problems in the fish behavior. Everything seems normal. If the filter were toxic, they'd be aggressive. Maybe that it occured when the fish were "asleep" made it less of a problem? One of the two filters was just cleaned out this week also, which would have helped, too.

Backup systems are great if you have them turned on!


But, the plan of action if it is a lenghty outage...

NO Feeding!

Oxygen -- sweep net through the tank to add air, pour tank water to make bubbles, remove hood and net top to contain jumpers, battery powered bubbler, DC converter to power equipment or UPS

Temp -- wrap to conserve heat or remove hood to cool tank

Filters -- canisters require oxygen, open canister and remove media to shallow tray, protect temp if needed, sink biowheel into tank, refill HOB if they have dropped water level, before restarting, clean filter in tank water

A UPS is great and they aren't expensive considering the insurance they provide. Even if the power is out for days it shouldn't be to hard to preserve your fish. I would keep some blankets around. You can wrap these around the tank to help keep them warm. Also, if you don't have a battery operated air pump you can blow into the tubing, which will also warm the water a little, or use a bellows to help turn the water over.

I have two dozen tanks, most with 2-3 filters each. UPS to support that would be far more expensive than a whole-house generator. Besides, many/most UPS will not operate canister motors well (square wave vs sine wave) and will die fast if required to operate heaters.

Heating backup for us is exterior-draft firplaces. It is not as even as the central system. but it serves.

For power outages less than 4-6 hours, I ignore them. Between 6 and 8 hours, I get ready for biofiltration saves. After 8 hours I dump the biomedia of all my canisters into shallow glass or food-safe plastic trays, barely covered with water. They have survived 3-day outages in that condition.

Last year we had three major outages, 30 hours to >2 days. I lost some shrimp babies in a couple of tanks, no adult fish.