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Power Outages?

1K views 5 replies 4 participants last post by  pittipuppylove 
#1 ·
Hey everybody!
I'm pretty new to fishkeeping in general, so please don't kill me if I'm asking a silly question...
So my mom's work, a vet clinic, currently working on a saltwater reef tank (I say they're working on it loosely, the people there feed the fish and do basic cleaning and a guy from the LFS comes in and stocks/deep cleans the tank about once a month) for the waiting area that I don't quite know the size of, probably about 36"Lx12"Dx24"H (the tank, not the waiting area :lol:). She's been wondering if they should have a generator or some sort of plan if the power goes; which, since we live in the midwest and have crazy weather year round, is a distinct possibility - it's happened before. Any advice/stories of what y'all do?
Thanks for any feedback in advance!
Leah
 
#3 ·
Okie dokie. We don't have them often - maybe every few years - but when we do, it's bad. The power tends to be out for 4 hours or more, depending on where you are (places closest to hospitals, schools, ect get fixed first), and we're nowhere near anywhere of importance. The last one we went through put the clinic's power out for over eight hours - which doesn't seem like much compared to the few days the power was out at my house, but when you have to keep vaccines and other medical stuff refrigerated or in certain conditions every hour counts.

Thus leading to the hope that we might someday be on a wired-in generator, but they're so expensive that it won't likely happen any time soon. The other things that have to be kept a certain way can be moved to our house, which has a generator, but that fish tank would be a killer to move!
 
#5 ·
Agreed on looking for a cheap generator.

Does not have to be powerful, enough to run the tank with everything running for about an hour would be sufficient. Also gives you a back up to run important circuits.

Just beware though that many appliances take more power on startup than they do actually running, this needs to be taken into account when selecting circuits to power.
 
#6 ·
Thanks, that's pretty much what I was thinking too. lol The fun part is that we'd have to keep a door open (no windows that can open) to keep the generator outside but run the cords inside - thus someone has to be there at all times to watch the place :p Oh well, it's worth it if the critters stay comfortable.
 
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