So I got a phone call from my mom that my power was out this morning verdict_in verdict_in :~S
Power came back on after 45 or so minutes, but it got me wondering how to heat the tank for a short period of time while the power was out. I told my mom to fill up a 2 liter with hot water, then I realized that water won’t work (well) and certainly not hot water!
So I wonder what is a good way to keep a tank warm in the winter without power?
whats the first law of thermal dynamics again?
i wonder if you could float bottles of hot water and keep swapping them out?
that would suck after a while tho…
there are a few ways you could go depending on your budget… and yes the hot water bottles will help a bit, but w/o power most people wont be able to boil the water. if you have gas and it works in a black out you can jsut heat soem of your tank water and carefully pour it in… other ways:
1)get a backup generator for your house- big budget, but I hope to have one in my next house
2)get a computer backup battery and put a low wattage heater and powerhead on int in case of power failure. cheap and easy. have doen this for years, but not optimal for outages for over 2hrs
3)get a large wattage inverter, grab your car battery and hook it up to the inverter. these run about $40. I plan on getting one soon for longer outages.
4)some other batter backup scheme. I hear many people use marine batteries, etc with inverters. others may be able to comment better.
also to consider- while heat is a big problem, so is flow. dont forget to consider both in your backup scheme.
It takes quite a while to heat and/or cool water. As long is your power outage isnt more than a day, I wouldnt worry about heating the water. What I would worry about is movement. Fish will die from lack of Oxygen much quicker than from thermal stress. At Keleigh’s parents house in Mass, they lost power for 16 hours in a recent ice storm. The temp of the tank only dropped to 72 in that time, but the fish were all close to death because of lack of Oxygen. Once we told them to take a pitcher and manually scoop some water out and pour it back in, the fish slowly recorverd and all of them made it.
First thing I would do in a power outage would be to cover the tank, sump, fuge and anything else hooked up to prevent heat loss. If it means using 16 layers of saran wrap so be it. I keep a battery operated air pump to keep the water oxygenated until the power comes back on.
If you have the ability to fill liter bottles with hot water do so completelty so ther eis no air left in the bottle and sink the bottle in the tank, this will ensure more then just the surface water heats up (remember heat rises) floating a hot water bottle on the surface will allow the bottom of the tank to become much cooler then the top.
bellamy is right, temp isn’t nearly as critical as oxygen. I found out first hand. Another thing to take into consideration is the size and activity level of your fish. I lost power in the middle of the night about a year ago. It was out for probably 4-5 hours. The temp dropped two degrees but I lost my yellow tang I had for years and a new angel right away. I lost two more small fish within a couple of days. Bigger fish will consume oxygen very quick. Right after I bought a 1000 watt backup inverter with 3 gel cells.
Keep in mind that most computer apcs(except for high end true sine) won’t do much for u
It also depends on the type of fish. I have a huge 8" wrasse, 6" passer angel, 3" niger trigger, 5" purple tang, 3 damsels and a 32" eel and my 90g tank was out of power for 5 hours on new years eve. All the fish made it fine and ate as soon as the power came back on, same with my reef. However this scares me, especially when I get more delicate fish. I am considering getting a marine battery (from a boat or car) and using an inverter. I have to do more research on it, but I think it will be the easiest. I can’t just hook up a generator and run it at my parents house, they’d flip. A battery is quiet and can be tucked out of the way. I think the biggest issue is when your not home. I have a air pump that plugs into the wall and senses when the power is, turning it on. Problem is, it’s so small, you’d need four of them on a 120g tank.
wow, that’s hard to believe. U were very lucky!!
I remember seeing one of those battery backup air pumps, maybe a few of them would be nice to have around. They should also provide a little bit of flow around the tank as the bubbles go up.