400 gallon project

[banditpowdercoat]

Originally Posted by untamed

We lost power here for about 24 hours yesterday.

I was prepared...or so I thought. At the 12 hour mark, I unpacked my gas generator. I had purchased this many years ago for emergency use.

The generator fired right up and I connected my circulation pumps. After about 3 minutes, all the pumps overheated and shut down. By alternating one pump, then the next, then the next for 2 mins each I was able to get circulation for about 30 mins. I decided I would repeat this every hour or two until the power returned.

When I fired up the generator an hour later...it was dead. Motor runs fine...no electricity generated. It seems that I now own a gas powered noise maker!

When power finally returned, I had lost only 1 fish...my rusty angel. 6 or so frags have also died.

Another casualty may be my aquatronica controller. After several hours of trying, I cannot get it to recognize my pH probe, so I have limited control of my Ca reactor. I also cannot reconnect my computer, so getting the controller even functional at all was a major challenge.

A tough day...

Electrician is here!!!
I bet is was a inverter generator right? Most inverter generators make a Suedo Signwave. A square wave. Good quality ones are Pulse Width Modulated which will smoothen the signwave. But cheap ones are like cheap UPS and car inverters where they make a square wave, just alternating DC 60 times a sec. This can and will overheat motors as they are not made to run on DC even a Alternating DC. Most likely played havok with the controller too. My other hobby, RC Heli's we have troubles with these cheap generators to run our power supplies for our chargers too.

Sorry for your loss. It REALLLY sux.

[untamed]

I knew somebody would know why the pumps overheated. Thanks!

I never connected the generator to anything else, so that can't explain why my controller is so messed up. Basically, the Aquatronica is sh*t...which is the main problem.

[lastlight]

sorry to hear brad. hope you don't suffer anymore losses.

[Delphinus]

Sorry to hear of the frustrations.

Wow, I wouldn't have guessed that this is something to check for when looking for a generator.

I wonder what would be a good architecture to go with then, instead. Maybe a UPS or battery backup for the pumps or circulators, and let the generator simply charge the battery? Sort of like how it works when we plug our cell phones or laptops into the wall - still running on battery, it just charges faster than it discharges?

[hillegom]

I have heard that when the power comes back on, sometimes there is a surge.
This has screwed a few friends computers, in different years.
The way I understand it, when the power goes out, you turn everything in the house off, except maybe a light, so that you know when the power is restored.
This saves your delicate electronic devices.
One friend (about 10 yrs ago) complained to hydro, and in his area, there was a big surge, neighbours had trouble as well, so hydro settled with him.

[untamed]

Another year seems to have drifted by so I suppose it is time for an update or two.

Over the past year or so, I've struggled with keeping my Ca/Alk levels up. I continuously tried to get MORE out of my Ca reactor, but I was frustrated that I was burning through CO2 at a startling rate. I had basically given up because I wasn't willing to spend any more $ on CO2 and I couldn't get any more production out of the reactor when my CO2 solenoid died.

I replaced the solenoid. MAGIC! All of sudden, I stopped going through CO2. Turns out that the solenoid must have been leaking badly for a long time. (yes, I checked for leaks many times but must have missed it somehow). So now I'm back to trying to raise my Ca/Alk and push my reactor harder.

I also became frustrated with constantly fighting with the peristaltic pump that drives the reactor. Not only do you need to change the tubing every few months, but the pump drive dies every couple of years. I decided to just flow the reactor continuously and put a JG solenoid on it to shut it down in the event of power failure. So far, this simpler arrangement is working well and I've got my Alk up to as high as 9! (Typically, It had been down at 6.5 for the past year or so)

Life and Death: Following the great power failure, I lost my Atlantic Blue. It is hard to say if it was related or not, but he got really sick and died in the weeks that followed the outage. Just recently, my eyelash Blennie died. His death seemed kind of "normal" to me. He seemed to just start to look quite old...his appetite diminished and he just faded away over the past few months. I didn't keep a record of his time in the tank, but my Atlantic Blue was just over 6 years.

The rest of the fish continue to thrive. Most of them have been in there 7 years now. Moe (Blonde Naso) and Corona (yellow tang) will be 8 years in a few months. Female clownfish will be 10 years in March. (Still laying eggs like clockwork every few weeks)

Coral still grows like mad...even though I have not replaced my halide bulbs in over 2 years and my T5 ballasts have all died. Eventually, I'm going to have to replace all the lights and will probably go LED at that point.

There is an ongoing war between the orange fire coral and other corals. Basically, if I keep the tank parameters healthy, the good coral holds its own. If I let things slide, the fire coral takes over. I can't face the project, but my entire live rock probably needs to be replaced in order to remove the fire coral. I'll probably need a crowbar to get it out as all my rock has become fused into one 500lb lump.

A couple of pics:

[hillegom]

Its still looking awesome.