# what to do if power goes out??



## daytonakid (Jul 24, 2006)

Bigman just brought to my attention the very real danger of the power in your house going out.

So What is the best thing to do if the power does go out?

Bigman was well prepared with extra tank, but some of us (atleast me) dont have such resources, so what could I do if the power does go out for a couple of hours? Aside from having a generator lol.


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## Rice & Beanz (Oct 30, 2006)

So What is the best thing to do if the power does go out?

PANIC!!














never thought of that


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## KINGofKINGS (Jul 24, 2006)

.... hope that it comes back on!!! like soon!!! a couple hours isnt going to be that big a deal---


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## CLUSTER ONE (Aug 2, 2006)

you can just occationally stir the water to get oxegen but it should bne fine for a couple of hours if its out like days thats bad


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## Dairy Whip (Mar 26, 2006)

yup hope it comes back on  but you can do a few little water changes a day to give air.


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## redrum781 (Apr 10, 2006)

mine was out for 22 hours last new year
i bought two bubblers that are battery operated and ran them for o2 
and cranked up the heater in the house to keep them warm
i was worried but it worked out fine
plus i will always have the bubblers just in case


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## spinalremains (Nov 10, 2006)

I had the power go out for about eight hours, so I wrapped my tank in blankets to help insulate it from heat loss. The temp stayed for the whole time and probably dropped 3 degrees or so.


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## RBP7 (Oct 13, 2006)

my power went out for a while but when then power did finaly turn back on my emporer 280 filter lost all suction, water and started making a grinding noise. good thing my room mate was their and unpluged it.what could i do so it doesn't do that again?


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## Ægir (Jan 21, 2006)

the best thing you can do to be prepared... have a generator 
if you dont have that resource, they make battery backups for computers that are pretty slick for running air/heat for a few hours... 
and if sh*t hits the fan... you can always start a fire, heat water and blow bubbles in your tank till you get light headed... plants help creating o2 if you have them in your tank you prob dont need to worry about bubbles, but light and heat instead... either way its a pain in the ass and hopefully the power grid doesnt drop off the face of the earth for more than a 12 hours


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## ___ (Feb 19, 2006)

2 things you could do

1. get a power strip with a batt. back up....saw one on sale last night at office depot for 50 bucks...

2. get "prime" or "amquel plus" add one of the two to the tank if its going to be out for a while.....batt. powered bubbler not a bad ideal

if it goes out for an hour or two no big deal just unplug your heater and make sure you plug it back in and you'll be ok



> blow bubbles in your tank till you get light headed


you blowwing in the tank is not oxygen.....but i thought of that and some let me in on that haha


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## FishHulk (Dec 8, 2006)

grab a straw and blow bubbles into the tank.


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## Ægir (Jan 21, 2006)

___ said:


> 2 things you could do
> 
> 1. get a power strip with a batt. back up....saw one on sale last night at office depot for 50 bucks...
> 
> ...


your lungs cant absorb all the available oxygen... even if you hold your breath... it wouldnt be AS effective as a airpump... but a quick in and a quick out is better than nothing? if things got ugly you better believe i would be blue in the face


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## redrum781 (Apr 10, 2006)

so if i hit the blunt and use a straw to blow the smoke in the tank.................

will my rhom get the munchies and eat more?

LOL


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## Ægir (Jan 21, 2006)

redrum781 said:


> so if i hit the blunt and use a straw to blow the smoke in the tank.................
> 
> will my rhom get the munchies and eat more?
> 
> LOL


no....not enogh smoke....try putting the blunt on the intake for the air pump and burn the entire thing down... my old roomies put a feeder in the bong for a major sesh, and then he fed it to his oscar... and a resin ball too.... the last thing you want is an oscar with the munchies, damn near eat you out of house and home...


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## taylorhedrich (Mar 2, 2005)

_*Topic Moved to Tank and Equipment Forum*_


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## BlackSunshine (Mar 28, 2006)

do what I've been doing for the last two days. Praying.. 
1 dead so far. power just came back on.


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## Dr. Giggles (Oct 18, 2003)

There are expensive options but for the majority of us, at least keep a battery operated air pump and some amquel plus on hand. With a filter failure as a side note I learned recently that circulation w/ a powerhead is mostly important to evenly distribute heat and keeping the tank oxygenated.


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## Draven1 (Nov 5, 2005)

I have a rechargeable portable power supply, you can run a variety of things off of it including fish tank heaters, filters etc you can even run laptops and other home devices off of it. Just charge it up and keep it handy in case of an emergency. If the power is out for an extended period of time you can always recharge it from the cigarette lighter in your car. It was only $60 at pepboys hopefully I'll never need it but just incase I will be covered, it's like having insurance.


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## zippa (Apr 29, 2005)

Last time my power was out for any length of time I used a POWER INVERTER...It will convert DC to AC and run about everything in your tank.They range in price from $50 or so to probably the moon...Here's a link.

http://www.dcacpowerinverters.com/


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## NeXuS (Aug 16, 2006)

well if you have an air pump mayb if you can a way to hook to a battery that could work idk just a thaught. i have a generator so i dont really have to worry about dead fish.


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## daytonakid (Jul 24, 2006)

zippa said:


> Last time my power was out for any length of time I used a POWER INVERTER...It will convert DC to AC and run about everything in your tank.They range in price from $50 or so to probably the moon...Here's a link.
> 
> http://www.dcacpowerinverters.com/


what did you do run power from your car?, or a car battery im failing nto see where you would have a sustained dc source


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## mcmurrayjl (Oct 13, 2006)

Funny this topic just came up. I just lost my power December 1 from the ice storm that hit the midwest. It was out for 3 days. I have 5 Silver Dollars, 4 Bala Sharks, and 7 Red Belly P's. The first few hours, I went to Wal Mart and got a power converter and attached it to an extra car battery I have. Oxygen was my first concern, and that was all that I could run off of the converter. The next day, I rented a generator for the electronics of the tank, with the exception of the lights. This worked as long as their was gas in the generator, but there were spans of time (hours) that it was not running.

After the power was finally restored, the temp in my house was 40 degrees, and the tank was 75. As I was cleaning the tank, I vacuumed up a spine and skull. Turns out that they ate one of the Bala Sharks, so now I only have 3.

All in all, everyone made it out ok. I am currently looking into buying a generator, which is really the only way to maintain life in your aquarium.


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## daytonakid (Jul 24, 2006)

you have all of those fish in one tank? thats pretty neat, was it expensive to just rent the generator?


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## Natt King Shoal (Aug 7, 2004)

Skunkbudfour20 said:


> you blowwing in the tank is not oxygen.....but i thought of that and some let me in on that haha


your lungs cant absorb all the available oxygen... even if you hold your breath... it wouldnt be AS effective as a airpump... but a quick in and a quick out is better than nothing? if things got ugly you better believe i would be blue in the face
[/quote]

A misconception with air stones is that the bubbles that come out of it directly oxygenate the water. What the air stone does is push 'stale' water to the top to agitate the SURFACE of the water where re-oxygenation occurrs.


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## zippa (Apr 29, 2005)

Plugged it into my cigarette lighter and ran an extention cord and power strip to my tank.....You could also just buy a 12 volt battery to hook it up right in your house but not sure how long the charge would last.


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## Zip (Apr 17, 2005)

I was without power for 46 hours after a storm this last July. I bought 2 battery powered air pumps for about $15 a pop. They run about a day and a half on 2 "D" batteries (which is surprising to me). All fish survived, although they had been gasping at the top before I put the airstones in. If it was a winter outtage, I wouldn't have gotten off so easy, with temperature considerations. Then I would have had to deal with generators or inverters, like others here.


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## the_skdster (Aug 15, 2006)

*Goes and buys battery-powered air pump.*
*Starts thinking of investing in a small generator.*

If you idle your car and have a converter attached to the cig lighter, won't you be able to run a filter & air pump for a long time with an extension cord?
Seems like the poor mans Generator to me?
Well, I guess this only works if you own a house or live close to ground floor of an apartment or condo.


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## zippa (Apr 29, 2005)

Yes if you live somewhere that you can run a cord from your car to your tank you can run a lot of your tank equipment for a long time like this.


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## daytonakid (Jul 24, 2006)

Depends on your alternator, how powerful it is really and how much equipment you are trying to run. Some peoples cars will die if they put after market subs in (with out a capcitor) if there alternator is too weak. so keep that in mind


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