Who is ready

[Dearth]

So continuation of the question who is ready for a power outage or other event

The reality is nobody is ever truly prepared for any unplanned event but what do you have if such an event happens

[Aquattro]

How come nobody includes polls in their polls?? :)

[Dearth]

How come nobody includes polls in their polls?? :)

Your too fast Brad I can only type so fast

[Aquattro]

Your too fast Brad I can only type so fast

Patience is a virtue. I have no virtue. Sorry :)

[Dearth]

Or patience in your old age

[WarDog]

Even though I have a battery backup for the vortech, I still voted I'm not ready, based on an outage of days or God forbid 'the big one'!

[Aquattro]

Or patience in your old age


Wanna arm wrestle, kid?? :)

[hillegom]

I can't click more than one choice.
I wanted to include blankets with my generator, which would be the last choice I use.
And a battery powered air pump!

[SeaHorse_Fanatic]

I have blankets, a small generator with heavy duty power cords and spare powerbars, 2 UPS battery backups, 2 new battery operated air pumps, two propane Weber BBQs with side burners to heat up water and spare propane tanks, with up to six jerry cans of gas to fuel my generator. Also, I'm in the planning stage for setting up a solar power system in my backyard with solar panels over my shed and pergola to charge a bank of four to six deep cycle batteries. - Again, it "helps" to be OCD.

My best "insurance" though seems to be that the powerlines in my neighbourhood are underground and so protected from wind storms, falling trees, and those types of disasters.

Anthony

[Dearth]

In the north we have in the winter time extreme cold to deal with and it sucks big time when the power goes out even with generator(s) going there is no guarantees of tank survival in an extended outage.

I have a generator and access to another one but you never know and as I first stated we are never truly prepared for outages of events

[kien]

I would say that I am ready but only up to a certain point. There is so much that can go wrong that no matter how much you plan and prepare, there will come a point in time where an event occurs that is beyond your planning and preparation.

My tank has been hit by quite a few events that I never accounted for. Each time one happened though, I add it to my list of contingency plans.

1. Determine the bare minimal set of equipment the tank needs to survive. Water flow, bubbler, heater. The tank can survive on just those three things for quite a while.

2. Have vital equipment backup. I have a spares of heaters, powerheads, return pump, ATO.

3. Have a generator and/or battery backup. When I first started I never thought I'd ever need one. Well, after the great Calgary flood of 2013 my mind was changed. It's better to have one and not need one than need one and not have one. When that flood hit we lost power for a day. I had to scramble in the storm to find one, along with thousands of other people in the city who had lost power. I did manage to find one and put my tank on life support with the bare minimum running (see #1 above). That generator saved my tank. Thankfully the outage was only one day, and it was near summer so it wasn't cold out, but the outage could have easily been worse.

4. Vacation planning. Have a tank sitter and have a plan! When you go away, make sure you have a backup plan for your tank sitter as well. I like to have a full Rubbermade brute full of NSW and my 50g RO reservoir full. I let my tank sitter know where all my spare equipment is in case something fails. I've had my ATO crap out while on vacation. Luckily it was no big deal as my tank sitter was able to just swap it out for the spare.

This past Christmas my controller crapped out shutting off all my heaters. Being a programmable powerpower, I had decided to program it to shut OFF the heaters in the event that the controller craps out (ie, no communications with controller), rather than staying ON, which is what all the other sockets (return pump, skimmer, reactors, etc) are programmed to. I've learned that surviving a cold tank is more likely than surviving an overheated tank. I don't trust heaters. It got pretty cold in the tank, it's winter and the furnace was off, so this outage hit many of my corals hard, but luckily I had a spare heater that my tank sitter could just drop into the sump. This was easier than trying to figure out the maze of wires that the existing heaters and controller are strung to. One other thing I learned from this outage is that if I ever go away on vacation again, I would leave the heat in the house on. It's a sensible safety precaution. If I had left the heat on in the house the tank probably would not have dropped as cold as it did.

5. Do not underestimate the power of the Dark Lord of Fate, Darth Murphyous.

[Reef Pilot]

I have battery power pack/inverters and a generator that I can use for power outages. Sadly these were all at the lake during our Aug storm/outage, and I lost 4 fish. Corals were all OK. Normally, I bring them home in Oct in preparation for the winter storms. But this year, we got hit in Aug.

[toytech]

Inverter I can run off my car in the garage , switch power between the furnace , pumps and heaters and should be ok for a few hours . Im in an area that has underground power so pretty stable , but if its -40 out and the power goes down im simply driving to the airport and flying somewhere warm and not coming back.

[AquaAddict]

My hubby bought me a 3 kilowat generator after that big blowdown that wrecked Stanley Park. Now all my fish tanks keep on going plus our appliances and even the next door neighbour's fridge.

AquaAddict

[MitchM]

I put in a whole house generator 7 years ago and don't even give power outages a second thought any more.

[Ian]

2 generators, 130 watts of solar panel and a 12v converter with a few deep cycle batteries....oh and a UPS for short term outages say 30 mins or so.

[riceboy]

I'm not to worried on a power outage. I designed everything so if the power does go out it wouldn't flood my house. As for the livestock it should be fine with a couple of hours or power outage even a day. And if everything starts back up it should be running fine. Only thing with my tank was my ato was messed up and the water ran dry in my sump so it wasn't a cause of the power outage but because of my stupidity aND negligence of the ato.

[AquaAddict]

I was ready. Now am not. Our generator was stolen early Sun morning while we slepped.

Aquaddict

[SeaHorse_Fanatic]

I was ready. Now am not. Our generator was stolen early Sun morning while we slepped.

Aquaddict


Cr@p. Was it in your garage or easily accessible?

[hillegom]

I was ready. Now am not. Our generator was stolen early Sun morning while we slepped.

Aquaddict

Oh man, thats too bad.
I feel for you.
Don't you wish you had set up some sort of trap that would have maimed your perp?
I had stuff stolen once, but that will not happen again!

[AquaAddict]

Sorry but sometimes it takes a while before I can reply. Thanks the support.

It was in my husband's workshop which is attached to our carport. He goes in and out a lot, locks it 99% of the time.

Yup, you guessed it - the one time he forgot to lock it, they struck. They came back a couple of nights ago but, of course, the door is locked and also set up with a 'screamer alarm'. There is still a lot of expensive stuff in there from Peter shutting his company workshop.

We are insured with a police file number and that is how we will replace it but we lose the $1000 deductible and our no claim discount.

AquaAddict