hurricane

[sly fox]

well with the hurricane my power was out, unfortunately i lost a fair bit of stuff, particularly sps that rtn'ed, in fact all my acros.... i now wish i had been prepared with a generator....the cheapest is about $500 but i lost more than that in coral.... i know people that are still without power, one friend has lost most of his tank, and his corals were gorgeous...

please think about what you'll do if you have a long power outage, and get battery pumps, or a generator or something....

[captexas]

Sorry to hear of your loss. I guess all you can do is be thankful that you and your family are safe, not all can do that.

As far as generators go, they are only good if you have gas. Gas is very hard to come by in some areas hit by the hurricane and even if you have gas, it could be many days or weeks before power is restored so it will be incredibly expensive. I have several co-workers that live in hurricane Ikes path and even those that have generators are now running out of gas to run them. Gas stations either have very long lines or are out. One coworker has a generator supporting his home and his family's home next door and it is running almost $150/day in gas!

[LoneStar]

I wonder if most people still have natural gas? If I were to live in a area prone to hurricanes (with having an expensive reef), I would install a natural gas driven generator.

[DrMark]

I think natural gas is the way to go for a whole or partial house backup generator. For my purpose, I planned on using my 6500watt gas generator to run the tanks and maybe a refridgerator, thats it.
For those of us that live on the gulf coast, hurricances are ineveitable and a $1000 generator is cheap insurance vs. losing all the fish and corals. Would be tough and expenssive to run it nonstop for a week or more, but I would have. The amount of time and committment to the fish and corals goes well beyond the cost of them to replace. I think it would be a disservice to the animals to not have a backup plan in the event of an extended power outage. I bought $200 of gas I will end up putting in the vehicles. i am very pleased to do that believe me compared with the devastation 3 hours from me.
mark

[glennr1978]

This may not be as good (or practical0 as having a generator, but I went out and bought a couple of power inverters that plug into a cars' cigartte lighter. I got two that are capable of 100w each. For me, that's enough power to run my vortech, return pump, skimmer, and fans.

Again, this may not be the best idea, but it is an inexpensive option for a quick fix. I do plan on buying a small generator though. However, if any storm that is even of cat 1 strength is going to hit Corpus I'm outta here. I love my tank, but not to the point that I would put my family in danger.

[sly fox]

interesting points... for many here in houston a few days on a generator would have done the trick

one thing that has come out of this is the battery pack for vortechs did not provide enough power to run the vortechs at max capacity for two reefers that had them and they lost their fish :(

[DrMark]

interesting points... for many here in houston a few days on a generator would have done the trick

one thing that has come out of this is the battery pack for vortechs did not provide enough power to run the vortechs at max capacity for two reefers that had them and they lost their fish :(

the vortech battery backup will run one for 30 hrs and two for 15hrs, obviously not enough.
I feel very very strongly about the need for a generator, although if you were not there to run it (evacuate) would not do you any good. In my case with the responsibilities to patients, I would always be in town no matter how bad the hurricane.......my wife and kids would be out of town.
mark

[JimD]

I wouldnt have a salt tank without a capable generator. Just say no to that next coral purchase and get yourself one, even if you never have to use it, you'll feel a lot better, trust me.

[sly fox]

actually the issue with the vortech wasnt how long theyd run, but that they didnt run at high capacity during that time so didnt agitate the surface enough to maintain oxygen levels... so fishcraze who won reef centrals totm a few months back lost 95% of his fish in 12 hrs

[captexas]

On the natrual gas idea, does anyone know if the utility companies leave the gas on during big hurricanes or do they shut it off to prevent fires? With the chance of homes and businesses being destroyed, it would run the risk of breaking gas lines and sparking fires. I know there were some fires in Galveston and Houston, not sure if those were gas line related or electrical related. Just curious, even though I don't have natural gas at my house.

I guess another option would be to find a generator that could run off of propane (if they make them) and have a large storage tank put underground at your house. I know where my dad lives out towards Boerne they use propane for heat and have a tank underground in the back yard.

[Bill S]

I have a small 1000w generator. Never been used. Having lost power for 8 hours before, running a Seio off of a car battery & inverter. Moving the surface water is the critical item.

[Nascars]

Well i just got my power back on. My power went off Saturday at 7:30 a.m. I lost alot of corals and fish.

[sly fox]

my power was out but i was still able to use the gas cooker, so the gas was still running...

[LoneStar]

I think closer to the 'major' disaster areas (coast lines or barrier island) they would/might turn the gas off, since that would be a direct impact with the most devestating damage. I would figure the further away from the coast line you would be safer and still have gas as an option. Plus if you have a gas stove, you would be able to cook if the power was out for long spells.

I would use the natural gas generator if I was in the area that I knew the power would be out for long spells due to natural disasters. I am pretty sure there are kits to allow generators to run off of liquid propane as well. Well at least the larger, permanent generators for houses.

[rotti71]

Right now is not the time, but as things get back to normal keep an eye on craigslist. You can get a really good used generator for under $500. I picked up a 10HP 6500W Briggs & Stratton last year for only $400 ($1000 new). Other than that, as soon as a hurricane enters the GOM go fill up w/ gas and fill up any portable cans you have. Even if you dont end up needing it for your generator, you can always pour it your cars (no chance to waste $ on gas).

[Aquapod24]

Hey guys. Not sure if any of these vendors were in the houston/galveston area, but here In Corpus Christi, I saw a vendor selling this power inverter which he said can run your lights, fans, and tv for up to 16 hours. The recharge on this is done by plugging up to a marine or your very car battery via the included jumper cables and running your car for 20 minutes to recharge. Now you are ready for another 16 hours. The company is called apsi power. You can see a demo at apsipower.com. The small one costs $499.

[Aquapod24]

Sorry guys. Hope I didn't sound like I work for this company..... I was just seriously looking into buying because the salesman says it was FEMA approved and I would be reimbursed because the President declared it disaster etc. Anyhow I didn't see that FEMA was outright paying for anyone who bought these so I turned it down.

[captexas]

I've seen some of those type inverters, they are portable, Sometimes used to jump a car battery. One of the guys at work has one and only uses it to power up his laptop when we are working in the middle of a store with no power. I wouldn't expext it to run a lot of stuff for too long.

I haven't heard of FEMA paying for people to buy generators or inverters. I don't think they will because they don't want you staying there in a disaster area, they want you evacuated. Also, "FEMA approved" doesn't mean much, they also approved travel trailers with formaldahyde in them that has made people sick. If they do pay for it, I'm sure it will be like everything else and you will have to meet several criteria to get reimbursed.

If you are looking at generators or inverters, don't just assume that what they say it will run will actually run all those things that you have. Different lights or whatever have different power draws. Most generators or inverters have a peak wattage rating and a normal/continuous wattage rating. You need to figure up how many watts you will be using to run certain items and then look for something that will power up that much at the normal rating. To do so, look at the item to see how many amps it is. AMPS x VOLTS = WATTS.

We had a conf. call this morning with all our guys in Houston. Sounds like several of them had generators fail after running for so long. Might be good to have a back up to your back up.