Diaster planning

[Thales]

I have 4 steps in place.
1) Several of the Penn Plax air pumps the go on when the power goes out. They run for days on D batteries and are available here: http://www.aquariumguys.com/silentairpump.html
2) A maxi jet on a ups (with a MVT wavemaker to extend the run time)
3) An inverter that hooks up to my car battery
4) A generator. I got one that puts out 8000 or 10000 watts because it is loud enough that I will have to offer some power to neighbors if I run it.

Step number 1 is a no brainer for any reefer. Its cheap and will deal with most issues like a gfci trip, or power outage when you are away for the day - or weekend.

What do you guys do?

 

[sfsuphysics]

Well right now it's a combo 3-4, inverter hooked to my car, but my hybrid batteries (Prius) hold I'm told 1.3 - 1.5 kWh worth of power, and the way the prius works is the engine stays off until the batteries get low they'll it'll kick on charging the batteries up to repeat the proceedure as necessary. Bottom line is it'll run return pumps & ocean's motion device so between my two tanks that's a hair over 100 watts worth of power.

I would get some of #1 but there's a whole lot of "I should" stuff I need to buy online but just get too lazy sometimes (ironically when I have too much time on my hands), so hopefully when I get busy again when school starts (and paychecks start rolling in) I can just go spend happy.

 

[wakskat]

I have a pen plax B11 pump in my 29 gallon and an inverter that hooks up to a car battery. Deep Cycle marine batteries are actually better for the inverter cause they can handle being drained more than a car battery can. Fully draining a car battery can shorten the life of the battery. i figure that if there is an outage I can use an old car battery I have lying around and then go get a deep cycle while that is running.

 

[Elite]

I have 2 battery air pumps, 2 inverters and couple 100' powercables . I need to hook up the air pump.

 

[sfsuphysics]

my disaster plan failed today when the fricking inverters died on me! It happened with 3 separate inverters too! 2 were 200w capacity, and one was 400w capacity, I just don't know what the hell happened. They worked fine then I plugged in a particular powrehead (I was running about 110watts) and wammo it killed it, not just turned it off but the thing would not turn back on.

 

[Raddogz]

Did you blow the fuse? My Radio Shack inverter comes with a replaceable blade-type fuse.

 

[sfsuphysics]

I thought maybe I did blow a fuse (don't know how though one was rated at 400watts the others at 200), I looked inside and the fuse looks intact. I thought maybe I blew a fuse in the case, even though the pumps only draw 110watts at 120v, the inverter is drawing that at 12V but that's only about 9amps, and the socket still worked (cell phone charger tested it). At this point I really don't know what, maybe the modified sine wave had some funky feedback with the pumps, maybe the initial draw of the pump caused a spike that the inverter couldn't handle, maybe I can chalk it up to cheap ass Target items made in china *shrug* I really don't know what.

 

[Thales]

Maybe its your car.

 

[sfsuphysics]

Shut up! My car rocks! No disrespecting the car!

 

[Vincerama2]

I have the Penn Plax air pumps too. They've been in my basement for um...a long time... I'll hook them up to the tank...

I don't have an inverter yet, but I do have one of those "jump start packs" which is a stand along car battery started. It's maybe um, 10 Ah? I dunno. I'm guessing it just has a regular car battery in it.

V

 

[dswong01]

I think it may be wise to test out all our disaster equipment and peridically run them to ensure they indeed work. Dont want to have failure like mike did. FWIW

 

[dswong01]