what to do incase of powercut??

i have had a few powercuts here lately they last anything from 30-45 mins no longer so far

will my 40 gallon saltwater tank be ok if this happens when i have it running? will the fish be ok?

will anything happen to the external filter?


would it be good to keep an airstone aside incase?
as i couldnt run a powerhead as it requires electricity.


or what would be the best thing to do? i would rather be prepared.

 

That amount of time won't hurt anything.

 

Most aquatics don't have any plan for powercut, including myself to be honest. If you want to be safe, get yourself a battery backup system for critical equipments.

 

I have a backup now, but before I would:

1. Wrap a blanket around the tank to keep heat in.
2. fill ziploc bags with warm water heated by a gas water heater/stove and float them in the tank.
3. Use a cup to dip in to the tank and pour water back in to aerate the water. You could just by a cheap little air pump with an air stone from many LFS's.

 

I was wondering the same thing...actually I didn't really think about it until I read this thread. I'm using an overflow box, so if the power cuts for say 30 minutes, the siphon would break, fill my sump and everything would be ok. BUT, when the power cuts back on, so would my pump....and then that would overflow the tank and run the pump dry wouldn 't it?

If that be the case, should I buy a backup battery source etc.?

 

your overflow should hold a siphon, if not, you have a problem. My overflow box never lost it's siphon once started even if the return pump shut off, the water in the DT would drop to the overflow level and hold, once the return came back on, the overflow automatically started siphoning again.

 

I had a battery backup connected to my system but i just noticed that the battery is dead so i have to get a new one for it.

 

I'm confused:-/...once the DT level drops to the level of the box, the only water left to siphon is what has actually flowed into the box. Once it sucks enough through it, it is sure to break siphon...just like a siphon for gravel cleaning....what happens if you get to the bottom of the tank and there is no water left to siphon....it breaks, right? Maybe there is some kind of weird aqua-physics thing I'm not thinking of, but why would it not break siphon...the water supply is not endless without a return pump...

 

because the U-Tube is lower than the water level on both sides of the overflow box. The notches at the top of the box is where the tank water level will end up so there will still be water in both sides of the overflow box because the drain side should have a stand pipe keeping water in there as well. when the return pump starts adding more water to the DT, the water will start to flow over the notches into the overflow box pushing water up into the siphon starting it again but the U-tube shouldn't ever get air in it during this event.

 

A lot of overflows have a section that the U tube or J tube goes into that doesn't drain to the sump. Since it doesn't drain and remains under water the whole time, siphon doesn't break. That works well in theory and not always in practice.

Other people use aqualifter pumps to restart siphon. aqua lifter pump - Google Search