Without Power - Hurricane Preparing

With Hurricane Ike looming off the coast and headed my way, hopefully not, I was wondering what to do to prepare my aquarium. I know the battery powered bubble maker, I thought I saw a battery powered powerhead some where. With the powerlines where I live, my power should be out the first 30 minutes of the storm with 20 mph winds

Since the water isn't circulating from the refugium, I would have to do a lot of water changes correct? Anything else? Trying to get a generator too.

Thanks.

 

Freeze some bottles of water in case your tank temperature starts to rise.

 

Im sure it will be hard to find with everyone repairing for the hurricane, but I would try to rent a small generator and buy as much gas as I possibly could. A pretty small generator should easily keep your tank going as long as you have gas!

 

Oh yeah, make up as much water as you can now too! Salt water and RO/DI water just in case!

 

I know its a pain in the butt, but I have one of these. Hand Bilge pump It comes in a 6 gpm or 10 gpm.

I would put it my sump and pump the water into the tank and let it over flow back into the sump.
Do this for a few minutes or so every 1/2 hour it should help allot.

I put a 5 gallon bucket on the top of my tank with several holes in the side at the bottom and
fill it several time an hour. as it drains back into the tank it does 2 things moves the water
and aerates it pretty well.

You can get them at WestMarine who has stores all over Florida

I also have a computer backup battery off of which I run a air pump which is on a relay and only
comes on when the power goes off. It pumps air into the back of my tank.

But for real long outages yes a generator would be the way to go.....

 

My local Petco has battery powered power-heads .. Nothing super powerful but it keeps movement. I think the main one is a 75gph ..

Also,
With water changes - you could lower the water temp.. I would keep an eye on the temp. Personally, I have been keeping up with a few people that are in LA that just had that last hurricane and more or less they stored up some water and did a small water change each day and also moved the water around a lil bit with one of those big wooden spoons.

While they still don't have power, they have reported that things are still ok in their tank. GOOD LUCK!

 

I wish I would have planned ahead. We got Ike head-on and my power went out for a week.... with no battery powerheads or anything else (I was in Tokyo, so wifey didn't care about the fish) Fish and a few corals didn't survive.

Now, I have to spend my bonus on replacements, but they will be better and more colorful than before.

 

There was a lot of dead fish in Houston.. My neighbor was telling me about his brothers' whole tank dying.
I was in Houston about a week after the Hurricane and it was a mess with no power and almost no gas. Some newer cars like my Toyota have an AC power outlet that is good for 400 watts. If I ever lose power I'll have to hook it up to the car and let it idle. I'm wandering how many hours an SUV would run sitting still.

 

I don't know about an SUV, but my parents old Cadillac ran for 4 hours before it died and I get the crap beat out of me for being stupid.....

 

Maybe I should check out Craigs list for a good tank about now?