Hurricane Safety

i lost my 300gal reef in katrina. flooded!!!!!! so nothing i could do about that. now i built my new house in a sub that didnt flood. anyways what ive done to prepare for 7+days without power. first i placed my tank so that it gets loads of natural light. like 4+hours per day. i know this isnt always possible. i found a great deal on a generator used that will power everything but my lights(skimmer,pumps,powerheads,ect...) so the best thing is to get a generator and lots of gas tanks. so good luck. i know how hard it is to loose something you have loved and worked on for years. sad sad sad

 

uumm.. no :-/

 

By far a generator is the way to go. Some don't have the budget for it but if you do then it will pay for itself in the end. I live in Indiana and when the after math of IKE came inland we lost power for 39.5 hrs. It was nice that the tank only lost power for about 15 seconds before the switchgear engaged.

 

I agree with Otty. Part of the reason that I waited so long to set up a reef again is that I wanted to make sure that I had a standby generator first. Even beyond the cost, I didn't want to deal with the heartbreak of watching my whole tank die because of a 5 day power outage (due to an ice storm). Admittedly, I only had one really bad power outage during the 8 years that I had my tanks set up but once was enough.

 

i saw a contraption at my LFS that was made to run powerheads for extended periods of time during power outages. they said they worked flawlessly throughout Gustav.

if you have the coin, i would highly recomend Honda generators. i ran 2 60 watt flourescent fixtures and a heat gun throughout the day for about 11 hours on less than 1 gallon of gas. plus they are super quiet, i sometimes forget when its even on!

Honda Power Equipment - EU2000i

and they can be had for way cheaper than that price. shop around

 

natural gas generator! hahahaha no hurricanes here in KS, only have to worry about the power going out for 2 weeks because of ICE!

 

and tornadoes

 

Lake Michigan hurricanes are the worst. Just thinking of one grows hair on your chest and blows you back a couple meters.

 

I live in south florida, couple years in 2004-2006 we had a couple hurricanes role through and we were out of power for two weeks i believe 4 times plus couple shorter tims. ..

usually we have a couple days to prepare....

SO preperations start a couple days in advance...

Pre- hurricane- 1. Water change couple days before the hurricane.
2. get a air pump that will airate your tank- hydrogen peroxide.

Powers out- First 2-3 days dont feed then feed in very small doses
Airate the water via water pump or hdeogen peroxide
Get the generator kicking....

 

I've lived in South Florida since birth but this is my first year with my own tank. I need to get battery operated air pump asap. My mom and my fiance work at a hospital and have to stay there as soon as we're under a hurricane warning. I always joke if my mom had to sit here with no power we'd have a giant generator lol Luckily we're right next to a school so we get priority on the power grid. I would hate for something to happen to my tank but I can't afford a generator so an air pump will have to do.