Probably not the best for a big tank, but dell has a sale today only on a small battery backup unit:

http://accessories.dell.com/sna/prod...1&sku=A0543170

Only $29.

Not really worth it, certainly would not run a pump for very long. 300w and only runs for 3mins at full load.

Well my Disaster plan works. After the last power outage 16.5 hours without a plan I new that I was extremely lucky to get through it with minor losses. I decided that the answer for me was a small generator. I found a small 950W generator for $169.00 (made in China) at the Army & Navy.

On Thursday at 3:00 Am our power went off for 3.5 hours. I quickly put my plan into effect. My new 950W generator started well and ran my main circulation pump (Ampmaster 3600)with out a problem for the period of the outage.

Tom R

Nice to hear ................good job:)
...................Dave

Hey Tom, I'm curious if you've checked the voltage output of your generator for spikes seeing how Chad got seemingly huge variances of voltage outputs with his generator.

noisy?
 

Tom, can you share with us how loud this generator was?

I do not have a voltage meter to measure the spikes. If someone has a meter we can easily set it up and see what voltage spikes it puts out. I spoke to an electrician and his asvice was that the Ampmaster was a simple electrical motor and it should not have any problems with the power from the generator.

The generator was a bit loud. It is reported to be around 60 ds. It sounds a lot like a small dirt bike at idle. I am not sure it a different muffler would help.

Tom

Well, the worst is over. Without power for 31 hours.
Think fast, MAN.
OOH yea I have a Coleman Powermate ULTRA 2500 watt Gennie.:smile:

It was quite the ordeal, started the gennie at 7:30am friday morning (neighbours were pleased about that:twised: ) and had to fill it every hour til 9:30pm that night. If the fish lasted through the night, I would still be in the hobby, if not who knows.

The next morning fish looked GASPING for air but OK, so here go's the gennie again.

Moral of this experience is "at least have a back up plan i.e. battery backup, gennies, or what ever you can do to minimize your loses.:biggrin:

yeahm we got the Coleman Powermate 3570watt. It had big wheels to make it very portable, fit in my Mazda3 with no problems. It runs up to 2 hours on 3quarts of gas at 50% capacity. We loved it, but it is a LOUD mf!

lol

placement
 

I'm assuming that these generators are placed outside and power is brought in via extension cords?