The power went out

[anarekist]

Last week so cal had some crazy wind storms and alot of people got their power knocked out. I was one of them

i had just got back from vacation too, when i came home my fish were swimming at the top gasping for air.

i had to go to autozone, buy a battery, best buy, buy an inverter and hooked it up to my air pumps, also i did about a 50% water change and sprayed water from the hose directly into the take to help aerate it.



it was able to run for about 19 hours. i had no power for up to 24 hours, talk about stressing out i was so worried they might not make it and i didnt have enough power to run heaters but thankfully the tank didnt drop below 70 degrees. Im thankful to report that all my fish survived the black out and for me kind of big lesson learned to have a back up system for when the power goes out, you never know when it's gona come back on.

 

[Chizzle]

nice to hear that your fish made it, I have to start looking into something like this.

 

[boldtogether]

Thats what I like to see, resourcefulness. Glad to hear you made it!

 

[arodini]

Good job on saving the fish!

It would take a lot more than that to save the fish if this was in mid-west or east coast this time of year. Temp would drop to the low 40's overnight (it's gotten to freezing point here sometimes already) if house heater was not running. I have my gas generator ready.

 

[Jer]

In addition to my Fluval canister filter I have two sponge filters in-tank that are run off of a single dual-output air pump that has a built in battery that automatically switches on in the event of lost power for just such a reason. I had a situation a while back where I lost power to my HOB filter and woke up to half of my fish dead overnight so I took steps to make sure this wouldn't happen again.

 

[West1]

Nice recovery! I was ass'ed out for 1.5hrs then as I was going to intrude my fish on my buddy... BAM the power was back on!

 

[FishNCash]

I always thought of buying a battery pump but I was lagging thinking it's unnecessary. After what I saw on the news I got a battery pump as backup. Hopefully I will not have the need to use it.

 

[Jer]

I always thought of buying a battery pump but I was lagging thinking it's unnecessary. After what I saw on the news I got a battery pump as backup. Hopefully I will not have the need to use it.

I got one that automatically switches to battery power in case power goes out when I'm asleep or traveling.

 

[FishNCash]

I got one that automatically switches to battery power in case power goes out when I'm asleep or traveling.

I saw that but it was too pricey for me. I did not feel like paying so much for something I will use as a backup.

 

[Jer]

I saw that but it was too pricey for me. I did not feel like paying so much for something I will use as a backup.

Mine is being used now. I run two sponge filters in the tank and a canister filter as well. If power goes out the canister filter will stop (the BB is in water so it will last a little longer) but the air pump will simply switch over to battery backup and keep the sponge filters going. That's the main reason I bought this version air pump which was a few bucks more than a regular battery powered pump. To me it cost more to buy something that would just sit in a drawer in the off chance I was home and awake to bust it out & get all set up when the power was lost. I forget exactly how much I paid but it was a fraction of what I lost in fish the night I didn't have water circulation. Seems like it was $35ish or so and the straight battery powered pumps I saw were all around $20 so $15 more for something I use all the time with automatic backup isn't much to pay for peace of mind unless you have a tank of guppies or gold fish.