Rollin' Blackouts, what's your backup?

[koiloco]

Generator only works if you are HOME.

Mine system is on a UPS for that purpose. a few hours in this temp could and will kill your fish.

We left for vacation on Friday. Power went out 1PM on Sunday . My UPS kicked in automatically so the air pump kept running for about 24 hours. My neighbor came home from work on monday morning and called me so I had to call my work and asked someone to drive a generator to my house.

The UPS is worth every penny, it give you the safe buffer needed so you can react to an outage.

ALSO BIG THANKS TO MY KOI BUDDY (HE KNOWS WHO HE IS ) FOR COMING OVER AND MAKE SURE EVERYTHING WAS OK. I OWE YOU A BIG ONE

[bekko]

I don't know how or when our extended family became a damn democracy, but it seems to work that way. If we bought a small generator and it came time to choose between fish, refrigerator, TVs and X-Box 360, the fish would lose out. Therefore, we have been looking at generators which will handle everything. Since the hot water, cook top and clothes dryer are gas, it's plausable.

Luckily, generators seem to be getting less expensive - at least when there is no emergency looming. 15kw - $2300, 7 kw - $900, 5 kw - $600. Manual switching is also cheap. However, the automatic transfer switches to flip from the grid to the generator and back are outrageous.

-ste veho

[Beadmaster]

Bought a generator just before the year change to 2000 (wanted to be prepared for any power shut down caused by computer problems).
Served me well since then.

Regarding bead (and other filters); experienced one serious power down of about 12 hours in my shop with heavily stocked tanks. I took watersamples from the moment we restarted everything until 12 hours later. To my big surprise (expecting total bacteria los) the measurements showed that waterquality was restored within little over 8 hours completely........
The first samples showed indeed very bad conditions with ammonia and nitrite readings through the roof (eh over the detection range of my photospectrum meter). Ik had to dilute the samples many times to get within the range of the equipment........
Nitrite went over 14 mg.....(not 0.14 but 14 .......).
After 2 hours (!) nitrite was down to 2 mg, after 2 more hours down to 0.8 and back to my "normal" level of about 0.05 to 0.1 mg in another 4 hours.
Ammonia was "not detectable" again within 3 hours after restarting the filters.

So my simple conclusion; the bio-mass did not die off in those 12 hours of power out. Otherwise the waterquality would not be restored in such a short time. I discussed this with a customer who is a microbiologist and he was not so surprised at all..... He told me that many of the bacteriaspecies that inhabit our filters can switch from aerobic (which they prefer) to anaerobic breathin "very" easy and quickely.......quite a surprise to me.....

[Mike T]

Toni:

I'm with Koiloco, UPS is the way to go for worry free vacations and/or just being away from the house, with a generator as back up...

Have a inverter system hooked up to both ponds with 3 batteries on one and 4 on the other, $5 & $600 each... Both can and have run for 8 hours each, plenty of time to secure a generator...

Another safety net associated with an inverter is the harmonics issue which comes with the change from AC to DC power causing the motor to run at a different sound wave... Both ponds pumps are hooked up after GFIs which trip from time to time due to surges etc... when this happens inverter kicks in and the increased whine of the pumps (doesn't harm pumps) alerts me to the fact that the GFI has tripped... Without inverter, you'd have a localized power outage to pumps and filters...

Was just going to Sam's Club to buy a 6.5~ 7.5kw generator to power whole house... Generator while not a Honda, is powered by a Honda motor and only costs $950 (Honda should be quieter than standard motors) when news that Hurricane Dale (David?) was coming our way... Now that it's died idea is on back burner...

Until I get the generator, second line of defense is a mister hooked up to garden hose and misting top of bakki showers on both ponds, keeps media damp with minimum water usage.... No need to worry about bead filter since bakki's are primary bio filters....

I guess I'm saying that, if I had to do it again, I'd still go with an inverter first and generator second as generator is really to power house as I feel that our ponds are power outage safe...

Aloha! Mike

[maryland_ponder]

One other thing I thought was worthy of adding here. Many people dont have their various pumps, aerators, UV lights etc on different AC circuits. Its a good idea to put the aerator on one circuit & the pump on another. That way if a fuse blows when your not home at least the fish will still get some sort of water flow & oxygen.

[junglegeorge12]

One thing you can find in most pet shops is a little battery operated air pump that only comes on when the power comes out. They are also very handy when transporting or putting koi in a measuring and pic tub or treatment vat. They will run for days on the batteries. I think they run about $20-30.

IMHO the best system for meergency backup for a ponds or whole home is a battery system with inverters and a generator solely to recharge the batteries. If you have it sized right you should only need to run a generator a couple hours a day to stay charged up. Cuts the gas bill on the generator way down. Learned that thru our many canes down here.

You can pick up good batteries for cheap for two sources if you know how to blast out eh inside to get th crud frombetween the plates and recharge them. One is a golf course or cart repair shop. they will usually let them go for 5-10 each. Another spot is airplane repair places. They cannot reuse a battery tht has aever lost it's charge on a plane, and with alittle cleaning the insides out, they usally work fine for many years and are large and strong, very dependable and hold their charge longer than normal batteries. Marine D8 batteries also do well. You can get smaller inverters at Radio Shack, and larger ones for good prices at WW Graingers.
The automatic switches can also be bought for less than normal at both Graingers and Roger Electric.
Now if you want free power, convert a large gas generator to hydrogen(very easy), and buy an electrolysis machine to convert water to hydrogen. Use that to recharge a large bank of batteries with inverter capable of running your home for four days. Have a backup bank of batteries on hand in case, and an extra inverter. Then your power costs your system build costs, plus water (Oh my), and maintenance costs. Spin your meter backwards and make them pay you for power.
You can make it even more efficient by using an old rebuilt motor, and belt driving a larger generator with the AC belt slot. Run the engine at low rpms and the generator at about 3600 to get the right cycles. 10 hp put out about 8000 watts. So a 200 hp engine should put out 160,000 watts, or 1400 amps at 110 volts and 727 at 220volts. Enough to run a small factory.

[Russell Peters]

How about a mouse on a treadmill connected to a battery?

[koiczar]

Bump!! Make it a rat. Then you'll get more rpms!LOL

[junglegeorge12]

If he runs fast he might be able to keep a small air pump going.

[Russell Peters]

Obviously, you have not seen my mouse yet!!!!! HAHA I am constantly falling over its droppings.