I NEED A PLAN...

[~TG~]

Well here i am again with a CPS construction UNPLANNED power outage today... worried about what happened last time, hoping i dont go home to another mess and that got me thinking ...

What is everyone out there using as a back-up in case of a long power outage? I know there are Battery back-ups but how long do those really last? then there are the Generators? and something i read in an old post about an Inverter?? well im not electrical savvy AT ALL so i have no clue what i need to look for...
All i know is that i have 3 tanks.. a 150g - 125g - 58g all with lots of corals/fish/sumps/pumps/blowers and stuff...

I'd really like to know what are the TOP things to remember in case of an outage and you have no backup.. these may seem like stupid questions but honestly i think there are alot of us that are NOT experts in the SW area and would really like to know when do we really need to start panicking?? like for example:
fish will be ok for ____ amount of time with no electricity.. cause in my mind- as soon as the light goes out im thinking GREAT they are gonna die any minute now.. OR Corals should be fine for ____ amount of time. SAME AS THE FISH THOUGHT.. :unsure

I honestly dont know...
In case of a power outage try to at least run what?? the blowers?? the sump?? All of the pumps??? the lights??
I think this is where my chest pain comes from..

Maybe its because of my line of work (Risk/QM for Hospital)
We always have to have an "In case of emergency plan" a "Disaster Plan" and here I have these mini disasters and I have nothing.... Nada.... this is really STRESSING ME OUt!! :blink LMAO I need a plan....... I NEED A PLAN....

I know there are tons of stuff to read but when you dont even know where to start.. thats where its hard... Sorry for my ramblings of a mad woman BUT if theres any advice anyone has please share ...

Thanks,
"Pre-MI"
~ Thelma

[JimD]

As much money as we spend on our tanks, a good generator is a small investment and a must have in my opinion.

[hobogato]

at the very least, a powerhead and an air pump in each display tank. i use a UPS that has only one of my return pumps on it, and will run that pump for about 45 minutes. if power is out longer than 30 minutes after that battery is spent, i crank up the little 1000watt generator and run the return pumps and the skimmer pump - no lights or anything else. i dont know how long anything would live if nothing were done, but i am not about to try and find out either ;)

[txstateunivreefer]

ditto get a generator 400 bucks for a real good one i think would be a good investment addition to protect what you have in so far. from what i hear the coleman outlet in san marcos has some good deals on generators. the back up batteries for laptops etc only last a short time enough time to save data thats it

[~TG~]

I've been surfing and is this something that i could use??
OR is this overkill? or not enough? LOL

http://www.lowes.com/lowes/lkn?actio...amp;lpage=none

[~TG~]

>..

[hobogato]

hmm... ive been thinking about something like this too. not a bad price either.

[erikharrison]

Well, there are other things to think about. As far as a generator goes, do they auto start? How does it know if you have lost power? A UPS is great, but only for short outages, unless you daisy chain the together. You need to look on your electronics, and list the Amperage for each tank. (usually will look like this 3.0a~120v) Then find a UPS that will be able to hold that amount of amperage. Usually you want to run your UPS at about half the amps it can handle for longer lifetime. If you spend about 100-150 per tank, you should be alright. Why do you have overflows? How is your tank setup that this is occuring? HOB overflows?

[TroyPham]

I've been surfing and is this something that i could use??
OR is this overkill? or not enough? LOL

http://www.lowes.com/lowes/lkn?actio...amp;lpage=none

I looked at one of these for my house in corpus last year. I think they are great. I looked at a number of diff. models and generac at 12k would run my house as the power company would.

I had a little power outage issue last week. power out for 27hrs. I was luck in that someone was home to tell me the power went out. for most, it goes out when we are at work or away from home. so the auto start of the generac is great.

what i did was run a bait box air pump from WalMart or Academy. i had a 1800wt generator and ran it every 1-1/2 hour for 10min at a time.(i live in an apartment currently) this work well and i had nothing die.
I ran return pump and powerheads. If i could have i would have run everything on the generator non-stop, but running it on my patio didn't go well with my aprt. complex.


edit: I live in houston now.

[brewercm]

This would be a nice little generator that would do you good if needed if you don't mind going to Austin to get it. Not sure if he still has it or not.

http://www.maast.org/index.php?name=...ic&t=24810