power outages

[mike31154]

I have two battery operated air pumps that automatically kick in when the power goes. And although I use VorTechs for water movement, I don't have the battery backups for them. I've been meaning to rig something up with an old car battery, just haven't got around to it. It's pretty simple really & I have the little connector that goes to the backup connection on the controller. I guess because I'm not away that much and when I am my daughter looks in on the tank every day, I don't need anything too complex capable of running things longer term during an outage.

In the almost 7 years the tank has been running, I've only experienced several outages lasting more than a couple of hours & I was usually home for those. There have been plenty of short outages, come home to all the digital clocks flashing, but that's not an issue for the tank. The gfci outlets running my pumps & lights generally don't trip so when the power comes back, everything starts up normally.

There was a longer outage about 5 years ago where I had to pull the battery out of my car, hook up an inverter to run essential items like a pump, heater a few lights & my skimmer. Some day soon I'm going to have solar panels & a battery bank to supplement the power in my home. I already have a small wind generator, but haven't installed that yet either.