Crazy storm 11hrs with no power

[Slick Fork]

Wow, anyone else in Central Ab lose power last night??? I guess lightning hit the transformer station that services our road and we were out of power for 11 hours. I've never seen a storm like that before

What a night, I had a bad feeling when the lights went out so I set my cell phone alarm clock... Thank GOD my sump is behind my tank and not under it, I ended up getting up every 30 minutes so I could take a bucket of water from the sump and dump it into the display and repeat for 10 minutes, then lay down for 30 minutes snoozing and back up to "shovel" more water into the display (where it would overflow into the sump) and thus keep some semblance of water movement.

11 hrs without power and not a single casualty, but man am I tired.

[michika]

Congrats on surviving you power outage.

[christyf5]

Oh wow, that totally sucks. In the future you might want to invest in a battery powered air pump. At least you can get a few more hours of solid sleep before worrying (or changing the battery).

http://www.jlaquatics.com/phpstore/store_pages/details/airpumps.php?product_ID=ap-hbat

I've used mine up to 3 hours before (never have had power out for too long here) on a 90 gallon tank.

[Slick Fork]

With this crazy weather we've been having I'm actually going to go out and grab a generator,

I'm looking at this one at Canadian Tire that puts out a True Sine Wave so it should be good for absolutely everything. I'll hook it up to my sump pump and refrigerator I think!

http://www.canadiantire.ca/browse/product_detail.jsp?PRODUCT%3C%3Eprd_id=84552444329 6839&bmForm=form_add_to_cart&bmFormID=1184787778352&bmSubmit=check_inv&bmUID=1184787778352&bmHash=7ea98dba128173b32f1fa2a563d88f67e1fe4a7e

[christyf5]

Heh, well ya then if you want to spend the big bucks :razz:

I was actually looking at that generator myself. Do you know anything about generators? We had a reef meeting here last fall and we all talked about having a "disaster plan". There was a fair amount of discussion on generators and I do remember something about an inverter and a sine wave. I just can't quite remember what it was, just that they were important. :confused:

[Slick Fork]

From what I understand...

The wave is the form the power takes as it leaves the inverter/generator, There are several type's of Wave: In order of quality from lowest to highest is step wave, simulated or modified sine wave, and true sine wave.

The application determines the quality of wave you need. For example, anything that runs a 12volt motor doesn't need a quality wave because it just takes the ac current and converts it to dc through the transformer. Other applications just don't need a high quality wave even though they run on AC power.

However, most things we use in our aquariums require a true sine wave, things like pumps, ballasts, and heaters all require a really pure wave in order to function properly. I'm not sure why, I just know that it is.

[christyf5]

Thanks! :biggrin:

[fishytime]

Whew I'm glad all your stuff made it Chris. Man you guys up there have really been getting the Sh!# end of the stick this week. Hows the frog spawn doin?

[Slick Fork]

Got my generator, now I'm ready for anything!

I thought for sure I was going to lose something, the worst looking one was the devils hand, without flow it had flopped right over... I thought it was dead and was going to pull it out before it melted but an hour with the pumps back on and Polyps were sticking out!

The frogspawn is doing great, I was so mad at the weather last night, I kept thinking "I've only had some of these guys 2 days... Give me a break"

http://i40.photobucket.com/albums/e244/chrisandheather/misc%20stuff/7_17_07SW04.jpg

You wouldn't know it had spent all night without flow in a cold, dark tank!

[andresont]

One more reason to get OFF the grid !
even with genset you only good as long as you have fuel...

[fishoholic]

I'm glad everythings ok with your tank. :biggrin: It must of gave you quite the scare!

[surgeonfish]

Chris
What generator did you end up getting? My power went out this morning (construction near our house) but only for 1 hour. However, you start getting worried as the time passes. I am going to get a generator ASAP. Since my sump is in the basement I would have to run up and down the stairs to keep some form of circulation going. I am not sure a small battery powered air pump would make any difference in large tanks.
Shane

[Slick Fork]

I ended up grabbing the one I linked to earlier in the thread. Canadian Tire has them on for $100 off. Puts out a true sinewave so my pumps don't know they're not plugged into the wall (probably a better wave than the one off the "grid" out here!). Very lightweight so I can keep it out in the shop and run it over here when I need it. 850 watts continuous operation is the rating so I can run the fridge, my sump return, skimmer and powerheads with it. Probably the actinics too in a pinch!

It won't do me any good though unless I'm at home to plug it in so my next investment will be a Tunze 6055 that I can use a standard battery backup with so that even if the power goes out while I'm at work, there'll be flow until I get home!

It was a little scary, I thought for sure I was going to start losing stuff. 1 night like that was enough to convince me to have an emergency set-up.