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hydro phoenix 
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 Topic: Planned power outage
Posted: December 11 2016 at 9:51am |
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So we had a planned power outage this morning for about and hour. My husband HATES the sound of the battery operated air pumps, to the point that one time he left the house. Not this morning though. For a more serious power outage though, what would you recommend I do? I've used one of those large brick back up batteries that you can plug in 8 different plugs into it and within 15 min it was completely drained. Apparently, it's not meant for motor operated machinery. Just laptops, cellphones and modems and the like. I've seen the back up battery for Vortech (I do not have vortech's) and not much else out there. What I want covered is the pumps (return and 2 Koralias and the heater). I'm not concerned about light bc they get plenty of natural light right now and they can handle a few days w out actinics and white lights.
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recent absurdity..Unicorns have rabies
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reefnfeef
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Posted: December 11 2016 at 11:04am |
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12v inverter that you can hook up to your car. With a few hundred watts you should be able to power your heater and a couple power heads. Used it once during outages.
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aaaaaaaaaaaaaannd.... I'm broke
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Mark Peterson
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Posted: December 11 2016 at 10:11pm |
I believe that there is often no need to worry, especially if the tank is near a window. Algae has great power to produce O2 which provides a survivable environment. Last week, our neighborhood experienced an unexpected ~8 hour power outage that ended several hours after dark. The time spent in darkness caused me some concern, but my 3 month old, 5 gal tank survived just fine. It has 2 medium size RBTA's, a 4" x 4" patch of Caulerpa, 4 small fish, 3" Plerogyra(awesome bubble coral), 6 heads of Caulastrea, 1"x 1" Xenia, and a 5"x 4" patch of GSP.
Open space in the tank and an open water surface is very important in allowing CO2 to escape and Oxygen to diffuse throughout the entire body of stagnant water. I believe that having a densely packed rock structure, including sand covered by rock, may be an all too common cause of tank stress/failure during a power outage.
Aloha, Mark 
Edited by Mark Peterson - December 12 2016 at 7:50am
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phys
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Posted: December 12 2016 at 4:41am |
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If its just for an hour or even 4 and your house is kept warm, you should be good with a car battery and inverter running a koralia. When looking for batteries, you want to look at mAh, Ah, or Wh. This is basically a measurement of the amount of available power. A 12v, 1 Ah can run a 12v device that pulls a continuous amp for one hour before dying or a 12v, 1/2 amp (500 mA) for 2 hours or a 12v, 1/4A (250mA) for 4 hours and etc. Same thing applies for watts. If you look at a koralia, it'll be around 8 watts. They're 120 volts. So you can figure how many amps they are by converting it from watts and volts to amps. But for Wh, a power supply of 100 Whs will power an 8 watt device for a little more than 12 hours. You get the idea. So if you plug multiple devices into a power supply, it'll drain it like crazy. Especially a 250 watt heater and an 80 watt return pump. You'll have to spend tons of money for a battery that'll power that for even an hour or two. A small generator powered off gas will give you the best emergency results for a full load. Otherwise, one koralia will provide enough oxygenation for your tank powered off a decent car battery and inverter for several hours. Just keep the battery on a trickle charger/maintainer while storing. If your house drops temps really low, hopefully you have a fireplace. Otherwise, possibly wrap it with some blankets to help hold heat in. Just don't choke off the oxygen too much with it.
Edited by phys - December 12 2016 at 4:43am
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Mark Peterson
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Posted: December 12 2016 at 7:29am |
P.S. Forgot to mention above, the 2 Cabbage corals, one of which is 4" x 2", about 5 mushrooms, a frag of Zoanthids and a Palythoa frag. The visually noticeable animals on the ~4 lbs of LR are Vermitid Snails, several feather duster worms, and of course there are 5 or so Astrea snails and a couple hermits. Dang, that's a lot of animals for a 5 gal tank. 
Everyone knows about the role of bacteria and bugs as biofiltration, but what continually amazes me is the amazing power of a patch or clump of macroalgae to oxygenate the water, eat pollution and support animal life.
One important caveat to what I've said: The deeper the tank, the more difficult it is to provide adequate oxygenation and CO2 release during stagnation. In these tanks creating even just a little upward water movement becomes critical.
Edited by Mark Peterson - December 12 2016 at 8:03am
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