• Folks, if you've recently upgraded or renewed your annual club membership but it's still not active, please reach out to the BOD or a moderator. The PayPal system has a slight bug which it doesn't allow it to activate the account on it's own.

Planned power outage, what do I do?

I'm having solar panels installed and I'm being told that its possible power is out for 8 hours.
I have a 125G (+30G sump) with:
7 small fish (2 kupang damsels, 2 clowns, 1 blenny, 1 fire fish, 1 royal gramma)
1 cleaner shrimp
3 2-4 head indo torches, 20 small bunches of Zoas (1-10 polyps)
couple other various corals. All small.

Do I need to power some air bubblers somehow? Or 8 hours w/o flow should be OK?
Or...I don't know...is there anything else I need to think of?
Should I put all my fish in a 10G or 2 10G (I have them for Quarantining) tanks and plug in heaters/air stones for the day at my neighbors house?
 

ecam

President
Staff member
Board of Directors
NJRC Member
Moderator
Agree with @mnat No flow is very bad.
Assuming it’s during the day, the temp shouldn’t be too much of an issue. So just get the battery powered bubblers and you should be good
 

amado

Dal
Staff member
Board of Directors
NJRC Member
I would get a inverter. You can connect it to your car/truck and run it for a while.
You just need to run your return pump. If you have a dc return I would lower the power to half.

300W Power Inverter DC 12V to 110V AC Car Charger Converter with 4.8A Dual USB Ports (Blue) 1 https://a.co/d/iaZNE1P
 

Attachments

  • A2F21F10-FCAB-4F77-88FD-629A52532692.png
    A2F21F10-FCAB-4F77-88FD-629A52532692.png
    3.1 MB · Views: 3

Salted

NJRC Member
Is this really a concern? Fish and corals are in shipping bags longer than that. Beyond that, likely the solar panel install guys will have a generator to run their tools, ask if you can plug in.
 

amado

Dal
Staff member
Board of Directors
NJRC Member
Is this really a concern? Fish and corals are in shipping bags longer than that. Beyond that, likely the solar panel install guys will have a generator to run their tools, ask if you can plug in.

I think this is a good opportunity to setup a plan in case he has a power outage in the future. I would take this opportunity and test battery backup system if you have one on your tank. I would also take advantage that you know when the power will be out so you can have a good plan.

with the cost of fish/corals these days why risk it.
The eco tech battery backup is not that expensive and it will run a return pump for a few days. Ice cap also makes one that’s around $120 and it works with apex.
You can also just get a $30 inverter and save your fish.

when sandy hit I used a generator just for the fish it was $300 and I still have that generator. I was able to keep my 12yr koi fish alive with a inverter from Walmart.
 
Last edited:

mwil79

NJRC Member
As most of the above said just a bubbler will do for oxygenation. When I lose power I only plug in a powerhead for each tank.
 
Looks like battery powered bubblers is the way.

I have a generator and the tank is one of the necessity items on it. But, even the generator will be disconnected during their work.
 

ecam

President
Staff member
Board of Directors
NJRC Member
Moderator
Don’t forget to stick a bubbler in the sump too. You don’t want to know how fast that can turn into a swampy mess with no circulation
 
Top