Cali Kid Corals

Power failure backup equipment

rygh

Guest
We had a power outage at around 10:00 last night.
A bit hard to get to sleep wondering if everything will be dead in the morning.
Power came back on around 12:30, so no big deal. But makes you think.

So any great ideas on how to plan for power failures?

For flow, it seems pretty easy for short term failures.
Put one powerhead in my display tank on a standard UPS like for PCs.
At 12 watts, a mid-size 8Ah one would last around 8 hours.

For oxygenation, it would be nice to have some sort of automatic battery powered air stone
that comes on when power fails, and where the airstone is just below the above backup
power head.
Every heard of a product like that?
I have seen plenty of battery powered air pumps, but not automatic ones.

Heaters? They use a lot of power, so hard to run on batteries.

Other thoughts???

Long term, about the only solution is a generator.
 
Bought a 2000w Honda power generator. Should be able to run my 190 with no problems.

Of course that only works if I'm at home.


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Something like this? It come on when AC power fail.

https://www.amazon.com/AQUATOP-Single-Battery-Operated-Pump/dp/B00DV26CSI/ref=pd_sim_sbs_199_4?ie=UTF8&dpID=51NH6LPjp7L&dpSrc=sims&preST=_AC_UL320_SR320,320_&psc=1&refRID=0P515TM04XCRJWB1KSH5

I'm also planning to put my return pump on a UPS to deal with short power outage. As for heater, I think as long as your house is comfortably warm, water temp shouldn't drop that quickly.

As for long term solution, I want a Tesla Powerwall

Yes, like that. Missed that one.
But wow, ton of negative reviews. So something - similar to that.
 
I have a UPS on my tank and another UPS on my router and modem so I have cameras and control of my tank with the apex for about 1.5hrs, that will give me enough time to head home and hook up the 1000w Yamaha generator

Jon
 
+1 for the Penn Plax dead simple battery fail-safe airstone pumps. I've used them on our tanks and they're a great last line of defense and so cheap.

They have an excellent reputation in the Boston club and one of the fundamental new reefer recommendations as a first line of defense.
 
I had that auto-on Penn Plax for like 10 years. I think it still works.
Yikes. After a year I still haven't gotten a UPS and such together. Thanks for the reminder.
 
I wonder if we should bug Apex about adding this?

The fusion server should be able to notice that data was not uploaded regularly, and send a warning text.
Or does that already exist?

Because even with a UPS on Apex + Modems + routers, you still depend on ISP at the other end not going down.
 
So I have been through multiple blackouts and some are 3-4 hrs and some are 22 hrs. It really depends when the blackout happens, winter or summer. Winter is good because lower o2 consumption. I usually don't worry much about temp as long it doesn't dip below 65. You got about 2-3 hrs window to dial things in if you have battery air stones or generator. I learned to account for all fish and don't assume that all fish are doing well just because you saw a few swimming happily. Make sure you have enough batteries around. Battery air stones will keep your tank going for 24 hrs but after that you will need a contingency plan. I must have about 20 of these units: https://www.rescuepetsupply.com/bat...E8957DC19259&gclid=CKHPssPJlM4CFYeUfgodNp0O2w

I also don't worry about flows either.
 
I wonder if we should bug Apex about adding this?

The fusion server should be able to notice that data was not uploaded regularly, and send a warning text.
Or does that already exist?

Because even with a UPS on Apex + Modems + routers, you still depend on ISP at the other end not going down.

Fusion will have a feature called heartbeat or something similar to this to let you know the there is no communication with Fusion. It is not in Fusion as of yet, however there is talk that it will be coming in the near future.

The thing to remember with this feature can give mixed messages. For example if someone has a wireless adapter that fails for some unknown reason that is connecting the Apex to the internet and it now stops communicating with Fusion and you get an alert does not mean that your tank has crashed, just that you can not communicate with Fusion.
 
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