The Official Asylum Reef Tank Thread

The power went out in the middle of the night. It could have been the O2 levels but only the shrimp and two small fish died and the big tang was stunned but recovered quickly. The clowns and damsels were unaffected. I have a whole house generator but it needs to be manually switched over and started. Our power can be out for days here, too. I have bought an automatic backup generator but a major rewiring has to be done to hook it up. $$$

[Blueface]

Originally Posted by BC-Axeman

The power went out in the middle of the night. It could have been the O2 levels but only the shrimp and two small fish died and the big tang was stunned but recovered quickly. The clowns and damsels were unaffected. I have a whole house generator but it needs to be manually switched over and started. Our power can be out for days here, too. I have bought an automatic backup generator but a major rewiring has to be done to hook it up. $$$

You can do it all for $10 each.
Buy yourself the battery operated air pumps that have a plug into the AC. You turn them on and as long as they sense power, they don't work. The second the power goes out, they turn on.
I keep them in my tank at all times.

Here is the info:
Penn-Plax
Silent-Air
B11

Originally Posted by Blueface

You can do it all for $10 each.
Buy yourself the battery operated air pumps that have a plug into the AC. You turn them on and as long as they sense power, they don't work. The second the power goes out, they turn on.
I keep them in my tank at all times.

Here is the info:
Penn-Plax
Silent-Air
B11

Good info, thanks. I've never heard of these. Either way, O2 or nitrates, these will help.

[Blueface]

Originally Posted by BC-Axeman

Good info, thanks. I've never heard of these. Either way, O2 or nitrates, these will help.

The nitrates will go up as waste produces and no method to eliminate it (no power to run filtration) but in a reef, with live sand and rock, that should really help dramatically in buying you time as it is a self sustained system for the most part. Oxygen would be the biggest concern and something rapidly depleted, which causes death, which in turn then raises your amonia, then nitrites and nitrates. I have experimented and found that high nitrates won't affect your fish. They can tolerate that. However, will impact the corals. Amonia and Nitrites? Different all together and definitely will impact everything in the system, including the fish.

In the future, I genuinely would recommend you do constant water changes in between it that persists as a problem to reduce build up until the power returns.

In addition to the B-11 pumps, you can also put a siren/alarm that chimes when power goes out to wake you up.