What Do You Do If Your Power Goes Out?

Recently I experianced a 5 day power outage with temperatures getting down to the low 50s in my house. I put a huge effort into saving my tanks and I was succesful with only one small decline in my xenia population. About half of the xenia died, but I am confident that it will grow back in no time! So how did I do it and what would I do next time? This is mostly for people to refer to when they have power outages because I was scrambling for ideas once my power went out, and hopefully I will be much better prepared next time because of my past experiances. I had a bunch of friends with tanks that just fell apart from the outages and it was really sad to see the tanks just devastated.


First I will start with what you could get before an outage to make yourself better prepared.

1. GET A BATTERY POWERED AIRSTONE. Mine was only $12 and it has saved my tank twice. Even if you dont think your power will go out GET ONE. They are very cheap, and they could do wonders for your tank. Mine actually detects when the power goes out. It is plugged into the wall and if the power goes out the battery inside runs the pump.

2. Get a small battery powered generator. I ordered mine from Amazon about 2 days into the outage with 2 day shipping. It was great and it powered my heater. there are two different ways you could power the generator. 1. Plug it in before an outage. It will store the charge then put it out on something 140 watts or less when you need it. 2. There is a hand pully system that when you pull the handle it actually charges the generator. Here is the exact $70 mini generator that I bought. It can do many other functions such as jump a car or pump a tire. Amazon.com: Rally 7471 Portable 8 in 1 Power Source and Jumpstart Unit with Hand Generator: Automotive

3. Aim a propane heater at your tank or put it in the room of your tank. This is one of those items that I just happened to have around the house.BE SURE THAT THE HEATER YOU ARE USING IS HOME SAFE! READ THE LABELS AND ALL SAFETY WARNINGS. Also keep the door of your heated room OPEN. I found the heater to keep the room that my tanks are in noticably warmer. It worked very well, but make sure you also have lots of propane to keep the heater running! AGAIN MAKE SURE YOUR HEATER IS SAFE FOR INSIDE USE. I used one similar to this: Amazon.com: Coleman SportCat PerfecTemp Catalytic Heater: Sports & Outdoors
Im not sure if this one ^^^ is safe for the home, but mine looked very similar.


Now what do you do when your power goes out?
1. Put towels on the tank! This kept my tank temperature about 5 degrees warmer and I found that it really helped! I had about 15 towels on or wrapped around the tank.

2. Use a spatula to move your tank water to oxiginate the tank. I found a slitted spatula to do best.

3. If you have a gas powered stove heat RODI water on it. Be sure you do not put too much RODI in becuase it could shock the tank. Also be sure you do not heat it too hot! Corals can get burnt. Dont pour it fast over any coral, but pour it slow over a rather unpopulated area. I found putting about 3 cups of heated water in every few hours to work well. WATCH YOUR SALINITY! Add salt to the heated water if neccesary.

Thanks for all of the ideas and help everybody gave me during my power outage! Hopefully this will help someone with a power outage in the future. 8)
JJL

 

BUMP so anybody that has not read the thread can get a chance to read it

 

I was out of power for 8 days. My tank temp dropped to 55 for a few days and all my fish were floating at the surface.

I had 2 battery operated airstones going and even thought they helped to oxygenate the tank, they also lowered the temp by pushing cold air into it.

What saved my tank until I was able to get a generator:
For 2 full nights, I took water out of the tank 3-5 gallons at a time, heated it, then took another few gallons from the tank and added it to the heated water prior to dumping it back to my tank. I did this every hour for 2 full nights to bring the temp above 70 before I go out on storm duty the following day. By the time I get back home 16 hrs later the temp would be back in the mid 50s, I repeated that process even thought everything looked dead....it paid off, I have 100% fish recovery and about 80% inverts recovery.

 

I have a generator in my current residense but assuming I didn't.

I could always use a AC convertor in my car, you know the ones you plug into your lighter. No where as good as a generator but would get the job done. (Side rant why don't they just put power sockets in your car now, must cars only have the lighter for devices now since smoking is no longer popular)

assuming I didn't have that either:

for both stop feeding.

Salt:
I just pray the tank doesn't have fragile sps in it.

Fresh:
open up all my canister filters so they don't go anerobic. do water changes.

 

great post, good information but in my opinion instead of number three (if a stove or some other cooking source id fill a pot with water and have filled water bottles float in the pot and warm the water up and then float them in the tank and keep redoing as necessary its much less work

 

some cars do have normal power sockets, my mom has them in it and i do have a converter to plug into my cigarette lighter

 

Good suggestion! That is always an option too.

 

Portable propane heaters are not safe for indoor use and can not be used without supervision, especially over long use.

You have to ensure that the heater has adequate ventilation for combustion as well as ventilation to allow the products of combustion to escape. If you burn propane once with an adequate air supply, you will only be producing water vapour and carbon dioxide. But if you reburn those gases, you will now be producing carbon monoxide in a large way.

Sent from my HTC EVO 3D using Tapatalk

 

+1 Lots of people got carbon monoxide poisoning over the last week as a result of this....and running their generators indoors.