Neptune Aquatics

Impending Storm! power outages?

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brleong

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Hi all,

With the impending storm coming in, they are expecting power outages, very high winds, flooding, etc. I thought I would start this thread.

Here's a short article on some things you can do if you dont have equipment to keep your pumps running:

http://saltaquarium.about.com/od/emergencyhelp1/a/Power-Outages-And-Saltwater-Aquariums.htm

Anyone else have any tips? I think a few people in the area have battery powered air pumps for loan on the emergency equipment list also.
 
I'm charging up a deep cycle RV battery just in case, should yield about 4 hours of pump, also I made styrofoam & cardboard panels that wrap the whole tank & stand. Last resort I can keep the car running in the driveway & recharge batter on it, so probably 6 hrs max.
 
I have an apex unit with a UPS attached to run the important parts of my tanks and then a generator for long term situations
 
any tips for those of us in apartments? I'm probably picking up a battery powered air pump today at the store. Is that sufficient without any pumps circulating water?
 
Mark must have some mighty muscles to be manually circulating water :D

Deep Cycle Marine or RV battery is your best bet if you can't use a generator (better than UPS too). Depending on what you want to run on it you can get tons of run time, air pump should be enough and keep the water oxygenated but a heater is important too if your temps dip bellow 72 degrees.

If (hopefully never) there is a prolonged power outage I will be swapping batteries into the car and driving around, you can start a car on a good battery then replace it with the dead one (while engine is still running) then go run errands and when you're back your dead battery is no longer dead. If battery is totally dead the drive needs to be at least 30 minutes so the car can actually start after the first stop.
 
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HiFidelity said:
Soooo after posting in this thread I came this [ ] close to picking up a generator till my fiance talked my out of it lol
Click to expand...

If you have more than one important purpose to keep power on (sump pumps for drainage, etc), then it may be worthwhile to purchase one. I haven't pulled the trigger since a generator can be expensive.
 
Enderturtle said:
Why do people care about water flow so much? Youd think temperature would be most important. Throw an airstone in there for oxygen.
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Because corals lungs don't move like ours do... flow is needed to make this happen for them. Low DO zones are very common in no flow situations as well, as are thermoclines. Flow tends to be one of the most important parts of a reef tank.
 
I remember when I got into this hobby (freshwater) I thought you had to have air stones with bubble to put oxygen into the water, until I had a fellow refer told me that the way the oxygen entered in the tank was by agitation on the water surface .... and when the bubbles of the air stone break the water surface is when the oxygen was created
 
So here is some science....Zzzz

Oxygen diffusion into your aquarium is a function of 3 primary things.
* Surface area of any air/water boundary.
* The boundary layer itself
* The relative concentration of Oxygen on each side of the boundary.

Temp and pressure matter a bit also, but those stay the same.

So how does that relate to power outage?

Surface area drops heavily!
Your sump no longer is active.
And all those small bubbles in the skimmer have (had) a lot of surface area.

Lack of flow messes up the relative concentrations!
With no flow, the tiny top layer of your tank becomes high in oxygen.
Once high in oxygen, concentrations become the same on both sides, and Oxygen diffusion stops.
So it is key to get low-O2 water in the rest of the tank replacing that high-O2 water at the surface.
The same is true at the Coral/Water boundary. Coral essentially cannot breathe.

The boundary itself gets coated in oils and organics.
When running, the gunk nicely gets sucked down the overflows.
But without that, it accumulates.
And oils/organics really decrease the diffusion rates.

---

On air-stones:
The little bubble increase surface area.
The bubbles create flow from lower-O2 areas at bottom, to surface.
The bubbles break up oils/crud a bit on the surface.
And even the little ripples create extra surface area.
ALL VERY GOOD!
 
Hmm.. If livestock can survive a small plastic bag of darkness while being shipped...why not a power outage in a large tank?
 
because volume is irrelevant when it comes to standing water, hypoxia actually occurs in the wild as well;

"A study published in Science found that there are over 400 hypoxic zones in the world (Diaz and Rosenberg, 2008). The hypoxic zone in the Gulf of Mexico is the largest in the United States, and one of the largest globally."

In the wild it generally isn't caused by standing water but rather by a multitude of different reasons, natural and human influenced.
 
Nav said:
Hmm.. If livestock can survive a small plastic bag of darkness while being shipped...why not a power outage in a large tank?
Click to expand...

Because when they ship you a fish they inject the bag with pure oxygen and in transport the bag shakes which in turn give the water surface agitation and introduces the oxygen into the water for the fish or coral
 
Well, Power went out yesterday at 11 am and my UPS turned on and kept my tank running for 1-1/2 hours so I could get home and turn on the Generator.

As I am writing this my power is still off, Yet my tank is happy it got to run all night long on the generator and today until power gets restored....(My neighbors must love me.....lol)
 
I have never been as grateful as I am now for underground power lines :)
I believe now an earthquake is my biggest concern but that includes far more than just losing power...
 
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