Lost to Hurricane Frances

[Acolin]

Did anyone lose their established reef tank because of a prolonged power failure? Did anybody else lose their reef system during Hurricane Frances? I was forced to evacuate and my power is still out after four days. The display tank crashed. But the mud filter is thriving. Only one Florida brown cup coral survived, so I put it into the sump. The UPS must have ran out agfter a few hours. No generator. Only second time in 14 years that I have lost power for more than a few hours. Still hurts though. I need feed the Madarin Goby some live brine a few days before the storm. This was the first time I fed him live foods in months, yet he looked fat and happy. The sump is still thriving with tiny copepods, but everything else in dead.

;(

[Hawkdl2]

Sorry to hear about your loss. I know exactly how you must be feeling. I lost my whole 150gal system after three days without power during the big fires in Southern California last October.

The good news is that after less than a year (I set it back up in late February), the tank already looks great and I've got decent sized SPs colonies growing well and a whole new "family" of fish. The "pain" from the loss is well behind me. The same will be true for you - if you don't despair and give up.

Take care and, like me, remember how fortunate you are that you only have to fret over something as inconsequential as an aquarium. I don't know bad your area was hit, but a lot of our neighbors saw their homes burn to the ground. All I had was dead fish and corals, burned landscaping and a quarter inch of ash all over everything.

Take care,

Larry

[musicsmaker]

Also, go out and get yourself a inverter to hook up to a car battery. I think I paid $75 for mine and it has already saved my tank during a power outing. Mine is 750 watts, I used it to run my return pump and heater.

[Acolin]

which one, where did you get it? how do you determine how much juice you need? did you bring your batttery inside or get another one?

[Phildirt]

Originally posted by musicsmaker
Also, go out and get yourself a inverter to hook up to a car battery. I think I paid $75 for mine and it has already saved my tank during a power outing. Mine is 750 watts, I used it to run my return pump and heater.

I like that, I may just try it.

[jjmg]

I paid about $45 for a 350 watt inverter at WalMart in the auto department. It should be plenty to keep a power head running near the top of the tank for gas exchange.

I plan on pulling the battery out of my truck and when it runs low, put it in and jump it and recharge it.

Phildirt, better be quick, we look like we are next!

Good luck everyone.

[Mmaggicc2]

Hi, I used a 400W power inverter (Walmart) and bought a spare car battery whch I hooked up inside the house. I ran the return pump and protein skimmer for about 10 hours before the low battery alarm sounded. We recharged the spare battery using jumper cables off the car battery. It took about 2 hours to recharge the spare battery. During that time we ran the inverter at the same time off the car battery. We were without power for 3 days during Charley. It worked great ! Mary

[musicsmaker]

Originally posted by Acolin
which one, where did you get it? how do you determine how much juice you need? did you bring your battery inside or get another one?

I got mine at either Home Depot or Lowes. You should get one that is rated with enough wattage to run whatever you need to. In my case, I figured 90 watts for my return pump, 250 watts for my heater, and 384 watts for my PC lighting incase it goes out for a few days. That all totals to 724 watts total if everything is running, so I got a 750 watt inverter. The heater and lighting don't usually run at the same time, so I'm actually a little oversized which is good.

When I ran it last time I just started a car and hooked it up to the battery. I just ran an extension cable to the tank and sat there with it until the power came back on. It would be a good idea to have extra fuses for the inverter just incase. A person who posts here hooked up one of these things when their power went out, and went back to sleep. The next morning they woke to a disaster because the inverter blew its fuse.

You can hook up a marine deep cycle battery to one of these things and it will run a pump or two for a few hours. You can rig up a relay switch to it so that it comes on automatically when the power goes out too. Basically a DIY battery backup for about $200. Check out this thread if you want to read about how to do that:

http://archive.reefcentral.com/forum...threadid=64918

[Hobart007]

My sympathies. I live in Cocoa Beach and my power was out for about 6 days. I had to evacuate before it hit (we are on an island) and by the time I got home I had 120 gallons of the world's most expensive fish stew. The pods, LR, LS, and cleanup crew have3 never been better but we lost everything else with the exception of 2 firefish that popped out from behind a rock when I was extracting corpses, and our 18" leather and all of the zoanthids, mushrooms, and feather dusters are ok. It really sucks but I am using it as an opportunity to upgrade equipment and fix some nagging problems. Curiously, our 2 mantis nanos and the Amazon biotope did just fine.. no ill effects at all... weird but lucky.. Oh well, good luck to you, I am still looking for something to provide power unattended for 6 days.. not much out there..

[Kelpie]

What do the large public aquaria do?

[Kelpie]

Acolin,

Would there have been any way to take some of the smaller things with you like the mandarin (I presume you lost it) maybe to a aquarium shop in another town?

[DgenR8]

Originally posted by Kelpie
What do the large public aquaria do?

My guess would be that they all have large generators, and can at least almost normal conditions for their animals.

[AquariaUSA]

For larger power inverters...check Costco, BJs, etc. They had them pretty inexpensive last time I was in. You could always buy a whole house backup system, but you are looking at $3K+ so I guess it depends on the size of the tank, house, etc.

Goodluck and sorry for the losses

[monkey61672]

So Sorry to hear that!!!!!

When the east coast had that power failure 2 summers ago my 125 crashed....