Reef nutrition

Power outage later this week - any tips?

IOnceWasLegend

IOnceWasLegend

Frag Swap Coordinator
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So PG&E just notified me there's gonna be a planned power outage from 8 am to 5 PM later this week. This is the first time I've had to deal with a power outage on my tanks; while I have battery backups for two of them (MP10/40 powerheads), would anybody have any tips/suggestions for how to best minimize issues and losses? Thanks!
 
You need to make sure you have aeration to allow for gas exchange.

Some people just back up their skimmer and return for this. Some get air pumps and put them in the display (super energy efficient). If all you have is power heads for this, then point them up toward the water surface more than you normally would until it makes an annoying amount of water noise breaking the surface.
 
Buy, borrow, or rent a small generator for the day just to be safe. Some Home Depots have rental departments along with your standard general equipment rental houses. United Rentals, Hertz, Cresco, Sunbelt, etc. A 2.0kW should be enough to keep the basic life support systems going. If you want to run lights and/or other things in the house you can go with a 5kw or 6kW gen. Make sure you have a full gas can on hand too. They'll only run a few hours with the on-board fuel tank.
 
learn from my experience last week. dont bother just running power heads. id run return / heater / skimmer (air pump) if possible on backups or generator. my experience was expensive and the bleeding hasnt stopped yet.
 
My power has been out for about 24 hours now. I also have battery bubblers that are the first line of defense, but since this power outage seemed like it was gonna last a while we also have a full gas generator on standby and we set that up. So at the moment and since last night my tank has been running on a gas generator. I think it's worth the investment for outages like this. If you don't want to spring for that though then just focus on surface agitation and aerating the water like others said. Lights are not a priority but you may want to keep an eye on the temperature. If you run power heads and return pump those will all generate heat but just keep an eye and make sure it doesn't fall too low.
 
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