power outages

[Reef Pilot]

Originally Posted by jagermaier

Oxygen is the biggest concern for power outage so I have my mp40's on a Vortech battery back up. Temp won't drop fast enough to worry about as the fish and corals will adjust.

Depends on time of year. Where we live, power outages tend to happen in late fall and winter, and the house will cool more quickly. 5 or 6 hours is no big deal, but after 12 hours there could be harm to your livestock, especially your fish. So you will definitely want to operate your heater after 5 hours, IMO.

That's why I like a battery inverter, to operate pumps (intermittent and low setting) and heaters. And it has enough capacity for 12 hours and more, depending on what you have. I can add an RV battery (or car battery) to mine to more than quadruple its capacity if I need to. I had to go through this a couple years ago, when our power was out for more than 24 hours. Everything survived just fine, and fish and corals did not suffer in the slightest.

I actually use this equipment during the summer at our lake cabin, charged by our solar panels. Then I just bring it home in the fall, and use it as a power back-up for my reef tanks. So no extra cost for me.