[newcichlidiot]

Am leaving town for about ten days in a coupla' weeks. Always have a neighbor come in and feed the little fellers every 2 or 3 days. My neighbor asked "What if there is a power failure"?
I said "Hmmm". I know the HOB's will stop working, and the sponge filters on pumps will restart. But what about the canisters? Will they lose their siphon? Will they restart? Usually our power loses are little brown outs and nothing is affected (or has been yet). This time of year with thunderstorms and such, the outage could be longer. Any thoughts?

 

[lucid_eye]

Here in houston we lose power all the time and it usually happens when I am at work. My wife knows nothing about fish and she always gets worried about the tanks. 90% of the time everything comes back instantly, but occasionally I have to tell her to dump a glass of tank water into the HOB. Why not flip the surge protector for 10 minutes and see what happens?

 

[JoelRHale]

With a canister you'll be fine. If you sleep through a power outage with a full sump you'll wake up to a lot of water on your floor. Good thing I keep my tank in the unfinished part of the basement on a concrete floor!

 

[Cichlidude]

^^ Not true. A properly designed sump will never spill any wanter upon a power failure. You have the wrong setup.

 

[Flippercon]

With a canister you'll be fine. If you sleep through a power outage with a full sump you'll wake up to a lot of water on your floor. Good thing I keep my tank in the unfinished part of the basement on a concrete floor!

Unfortunately when a canister is off it for a long period of time it becomes anarobic. The system is a closed system unlike a sump. So if you lose power for a long period no oxygen gets to the bb and kills it.

 

[londonloco]

I've been without power 2x in the past few years, once for 2 days, next time for 3 days. The first time I lost -0- fish, second time I did lose rummy nose. No spikes afterwards either, in both my HOB tanks and canister.

 

[JoelRHale]

Cichlidude, I don't have the wrong set up, I had cut corners and kept it full to keep my tank water level stable for longer.

If I would have kept the water at the water line it wouldn't have happened.

Point is, mistakes happen, sometimes you get lazy and you add too much, with a canister that will never hurt you.

And yeah, Flippercon, that is the downside, but serious water damage in a home cost a heck of a lot more to fix than losing some fish due to having to recycle a tank!

 

[Flippercon]

Cichlidude, I don't have the wrong set up, I had cut corners and kept it full to keep my tank water level stable for longer.

If I would have kept the water at the water line it wouldn't have happened.

Point is, mistakes happen, sometimes you get lazy and you add too much, with a canister that will never hurt you.

And yeah, Flippercon, that is the downside, but serious water damage in a home cost a heck of a lot more to fix than losing some fish due to having to recycle a tank!

oh agreed.
There just needs to be a fail safe so when power goes out it doesn't automatically turn them back on so the anarobic water inside won't kill the fish. This way when you get home your filter is off and you know to take It apart and clean it.

 

[the blur]

APC 1500 UPS.
problem solved 8)

 

[lucid_eye]

I have thinking about getting a UPS myself, but I don't loose power for more than 10 to 15 minutes, except for during the last hurricane but I don't think the ups would have lasted 6 days. :-?

 

[prov356]

but I don't think the ups would have lasted 6 days.

It would not have, not even close. Go to apc.com and they have utilities you can use to calculate this stuff. 100W on a APC 1500 would run for 3 hours. Try to run even 25W for 24 hours and you're looking at $1600 - $2000 units. Of course that's APC list price, you'll probably find them a bit cheaper if you shop around. But, these units weren't designed or intended to power things for days.

I have thinking about getting a UPS myself, but I don't loose power for more than 10 to 15 minutes

That's more what they're intended for. Brief outtages. I use one on one of my sump systems so power blinks and surges won't wreak havoc with my pump. One time when my power was out for a few hours, I ran it once an hour for a few minutes just to turn the water over a bit and re-moisten biomedia.

 

[the blur]

only hook up life substaining equipment to the APC. during the big NE power outage, which was 1 week, I was able to keep my fish alive with a 1500 APC. 1 air pump, and one powerfilter. I forget the details, but at the end, the filter was running very slowly, but running.

 

[prov356]

only hook up life substaining equipment to the APC. during the big NE power outage, which was 1 week, I was able to keep my fish alive with a 1500 APC. 1 air pump, and one powerfilter. I forget the details, but at the end, the filter was running very slowly, but running.

A 1500 will not run anything for a week. Check the site, enter the wattage and you'll see that. Just won't happen. You're misleading people with this and it's not the first time.

 

[allierw]

I went through 7 days without power back in April when tornadoes went through my area so I thought I would comment. I have 5 tanks up and running, most of them running AC 110s or 70s, and XP3s. I ran battery powered air bubblers in my most sensitive tanks, but otherwise just did not feed the fish. Day 5 we got a generator and I ran an AC 110 on my 125g frontosa tank just to get a little water movement, but could not plug in any other tanks. When the power came back on, all the filters came back on. No anaerobic bacteria killed my fish. They all made it through perfectly fine. A power supply is not likely to last long in these situations, either. The ones we have only lasted a few minutes. If you really want preparedness, I recommend a small Honda generator and a lot of extension cords.

None of the fish people I know had an issue with anaerobic bacteria.

 

[RRasco]

That's why I like the new Aqueon power filters, they are self priming so you don't have to pour water in them. Canister filters should be fine as well. As stated, most power outages are not very long lasting so UPS are really not even worth it, unless you have a sensitive pump. Then it's just cheaper to get a quality pump, UPS are not cheap.