Hurricane Season coming...advice

[Coralreefdiver]

I am sure I am not the only person on this forum that has to deal with Hurricanes.

Whats the best suggestion for dealing with a minimum of a 2 day power outage due to a hurricane?

I thought I had heard of someone discussing the use of a computer back up type battery. I looked online for them, and could only find a battery type plug deal that would only allow for up to 90 min of back up time, and that was a $200 system.

Are there any battery type back ups that you can continually change batteries on it?

If you just use a battery airpump, how do you deal with water temperature, and no lighting on your corals?

 

[Anonymous]

There are no easy answers here - well, afordable ones anyway. With hurricanes, you are fortunate if you only lose power for a couple of days - and if you can even get back to your house after evacuating. I live on the norhtern gulf coast and we had our share of storms last year. We had to deal with Hurricane Rita where I live. While we didn't get the storm surge that the southernmost areas did, we got pelted by 120+ mph winds - for 12 hours. Our power grid had to be almost completely rebuilt. It took 2 weeks to get power back and it was a week before the local authorities would even let anyone back into town. If you evacuate, don't assume you can just go back home when you want to, if your town suffers significant damage.

Very few tanks that I know of survived the storm here where I live. One used a marine battery and a 12 volt air pump and air stone for the first few days. They replaced the battery during a "look & leave" period where people were allowed to go back into the area to survey their damages. They don't know how long it took the battery to run down. This was on a 185. They lost only a few corals. Another friend, had someone (who happens to be a marine biologist) come get the contents of his 120 and moved them 75 miles east (to her home) where there was power. A few others managed to get back home and run theirs with gas powered generators. A lot of generators were useless as gasoline was in short supply. Sadly though, most local systems, including mine, perished.

Even if you can keep the water circulating, heat will become a huge issue until air conditioning can be restored. Short of buying an emergency back up generator system for your home, there isn't any fail safe method that I am aware of that will keep you safe for a few days. I did run across this the other day on Marine Depot. Don't know how well it actually works. But it is something to consider.

http://www.marinedepot.com/md_viewItem.asp?idproduct=RY1119

or for more money...

http://www.jehmco.com/PRODUCTS_/HARDWARE_/Battery_Backup_System/battery_backup_system.html

 

[Semo]

My guess would be a gas operated generator. Ya can get one big enough to run a refrigerator and water pump for <500. I am sure an aquarium wouldn't put that much of a load on it. If its an evacuation type thing...I doubt your generator would last very long without you there to watch over it. Either theft or running out of gas would be an issue there.

 

[Anonymous]

My guess would be a gas operated generator. Ya can get one big enough to run a refrigerator and water pump for <500. I am sure an aquarium wouldn't put that much of a load on it. If its an evacuation type thing...I doubt your generator would last very long without you there to watch over it. Either theft or running out of gas would be an issue there.

From experience, don't count on there being a lot of gas around to run a generator for some time after a hurricane. Power interruption will prevent stations from pumping gas - if they are open at all (or still standing) - and supply is often diverted to the government for use in emergency vehicles. You would have to stockpile it and at $3.00 a gallon it would be costly to keep a 1-2 week supply of fuel on hand. I can tell you that in my town (about 85,000 people) there was ONE gas station selling gas after Rita for about 10 days. Of course, if you can get back home and can find gas, a gas generator is the way to go.

It was 10 days before local authorities let us back in to "look and leave" to survey our damages. It was 3 weeks before some affected by Katrina were allowed back in temporarily - and I mean be gone by sundown. Unless you buy an emergency back up system for your home (which you can do for under 4k-5k) there is no way to ensure an aquarium will remain operational long term without power - assuming of course that your house survives the storm. Those systems run off of natural gas or propane, so the bill for keeping that generator going for a long time will be astronomical.

 

[Semo]

I have only ran my generator for a couple hours at a time (for the fridg), due to ice storms here in NC. Mine runs off propane and after a modification, it hooks to the same tank as my gas grill. My father-in law works in HVAC and fixed the hook ups for me.

 

[Anonymous]

I have only ran my generator for a couple hours at a time (for the fridg), due to ice storms here in NC. Mine runs off propane and after a modification, it hooks to the same tank as my gas grill. My father-in law works in HVAC and fixed the hook ups for me.

How big of a tank do you have and how long will it last running the generator?

 

[Semo]

How big of a tank do you have and how long will it last running the generator?

I am gonna guess...20lb tank. Its the same as the round ones that hook to gas grills. I have only had to run it for a total of 2 hours and it didn't seem to use any..but thats just going off of the feel of the weight. I am not sure how much a refridgerator pulls (im gonna guess 500 watts...ish..), but the generator is supposed to use 5 lbs per hour at rated power which is 5000 watt..

I bought the thing from a foam insulation business that went bust and he had butchered the generator.

 

[Coralreefdiver]

Gas 'n Generatin' some tricity

Gas:

Dont know if this law was passed in other states boardering our lovely coasts, but in FL now, we have a law that a gas station is required now to have generators on site capable of running the pumps in the event of a power outage do to acts of God. So, gas generators might be plausible in FL.

Also, as a side note, if you purchase a generator for electricty due to a hurricane power outage, FEMA will refund you the money for the generator's cost, as long as you have a receipt with the date of purchase and such.