Emergency Power

[GaryP]

Have any of you made plans for what to do in the event of a major power outage? A generator or backup battery to run pumps?

I saw a lot of folks have their tanks crash as the result of an ice storm in SC. I even got a free 75 gal. out of that. I was lucky because we had underground utilities at the time. While I realize that isn't as likely here in S. TX, I would hate to hopelessly watch thousands of dollars of livestock die.

I would like to see if anyone has given this some thought. I always start to get antsy after power has been off more than a few hours here because of a thunderstorm or a transformer going out. In addition to ice storms, we are overdue for a hurricane.

Gary

[StephenA]

I've thought about a small generator It's just on the bottom of the need list (which is stupid it should be near the top). Knock on wood our power in the past 7 years has only been out for about 5 min.

[Instar]

Its not at all stupid to think about that where I live at least. Our power was out for 2 days in July 1992 when the San Antonio river flooded. There was also no internet service during that time. I ran my generator for the entire 2 days and kept a nice sps reef alive. Either a large UPS or small generator just for the tank is worth it in my opionion. You can control when it runs and when you run your frig if you happend to be in town. When I get serious about this I'll put a big UPS on one of my returns from the sump for all those out of town experiences. I'll also fix my generator cause it smoked on the last hoopla.

[GaryP]

I was just talking to a friend. He can get me some aircraft batteries for free. They get changed every 30 months and are double walled and can't leak. 6 maxijets 1200's pull 120 watts. I'm just trying to figure out how many hours that will give me. I think not enough. I could cut that down to about 3 maxijets. At least not enough for an extended outage. The other problem would be storage of the batteries and the hassle of keeping them charged. I'm leaning towards a generator. At least that way I could keep my refrigerator going too.

Gary

[adaminaustin]

I have thought about it. I think I am going get a large UPS. I would not have it on my return pump, just my tunze stream. This would be bad for my fuge but it would keep the tank moving, and it would consume less power than a single maxijet.

[GaryP]

A Tunze consumes less than a MaxiJet? Less than 20 watts?

Gary

[mharris7]

I think a maxijet 1200 is something like 24 watts. Yes, Tunze Streams use less than that. So do the Turbelle's.

I had a large (850 va?) UPS for years. I ran a return pump on it for 3 or 4 hours no problem. You could probably run a Stream or Turbelle for quite a while. The battery backups are designed to run computer systems for up to half an hour. A computer power supply can be 300 to 500 watts and a computer monitor can be about the same. So you can see where a good size battery backup unit could run a 20 watt pump for hours.... For days though I'd think you'd want a generator.

[adaminaustin]

Gary P,
I just looked on Tunze websight. Looks like the Stream 6000 uses 11watts has a max flow of 1845gph. My Stream is a 6100 it uses 45watts (it would be like running two maxi jets)and has max flow of 3170gph.

[GaryP]

According to MaxiJet, a 1200 pulls 20 amps. I'm surprised a Tunze pulls less. Something to think about for future imprvements.

Gary