[roguemonk]

I haven't had a power outage during the winter since I started running my tanks in July of '05. I bought a small gas-powered generator on ebay for maybe $250 delivered? You can get something comparable at Home Depot or Wal-Mart for less than $400 I'd guess. Compared to the price of replacing all the livestock if it DOES happen that's a steal. And, as I said, don't think that people with their tanks in the living room are safe either. It won't take long for the tank temp to dip below 60 degrees in the dead of winter and that's enough to do the trick (if it gets down to 40 who cares? They're all dead anyway...).

I don't know if there were power outages in Denver/Aurora last year in the three big blizzards. It's not like the rest of the country where they get ice storms and/or floods. A tree downed by snow can happen and cause an outage, and in the mountains things are dicey, but I think here we're, by and large, pretty stable. In the summers there used to be occasional rolling blackouts but I don't think it's happened lately and it's not as much of a problem.

But as someone mentioned you might also need a chiller for the summer to prevent the tank overheating. That adds another pile of dough, but it is still feasible if you budget for it.

Thanks,

Brad