Help...power outage!

[Beaches]

OK, just when I thought this might not be too hard, mother nature gives me a jolt--of lightning of course. Knocked out the transformer for our whole block--from 5p to 3:30a! I'm not sure how much damage was done to my live rock, but let me give you a breakdown of what I did...and let me know what I can now expect.

Borrowed an aerator bucket (run off batteries) and filled with water from tank, live rock and Spotty (my lonely little domino) in around 10p. Spotty wasn't looking too energetic and I thought I'd lost him, but at 3:30p when the power came back on he was moving along fine in the bucket. After running the tank for around 30 minutes I checked the water and everything seemed fine, but I did a 10% water change anyway. Then added the live rock back in and around 15 minutes later put Spotty back (yes, it was a very long night--living in FL w/no AC after a 90d day is not fun--not to mention all your refrigerator/freezer fun!). Anyway, I digress...everything seemed fine, finally went to sleep (4:30ish) and got up for work @ 6:30--everything seemed fine. Spotty was zooming around the tank so I fed him a little flake--which he devoured!

So, my question (after this long diaglog) is...what should I expect? Is my live rock now dead rock?

[Alice]

I think your rock (was it all in the bucket?) is probably fine. Even if it was still in the tank, it would probably be fine for that amount of time. You might want to monitor your water levels for ammonia or nitrites just in case there was some die-off, do a waterchange if they start to rise. For future, you might want to get one of those little PlennPax airpumps that run off batteries. With your small tank, that would see you through a power outtage just fine.

You did good, Beaches

[Beaches]

Thanks for the quick response! It's really amazing what you'll do for some rock and a fish everyone seems to dislike! Spotty is just too cute, sorry to say I think I'm hooked, it'll be hard to give him/her up--especially if it makes it through all my trails and tribulations with this setup!

Hope all have a great weekend--it's supposed to rain/storm here again today and for the weekend, but we need it!

[gauge14iv]

We have on our tank on a couple of battery backups - same ones they use for computers. Unfortunately, they will only buy you an hour to an hour and a half - but that at least gives ya time to think of other alternatives and covers most of the short outages. We only run the pumps on them to reduce the draw on the battery.

We happen to have about 30 of these battery backup units in the garage - they are heavy and so shipping would be very expensive, but if anyone wants one we'll let em go for about 30.00 apiece and shipping (Unless you live in the Dallas area - then you can come get em!)

What sort of battery operated pump should we look at to cover the longer term type stuff? The power does goes out here on occasion - seemingly fo no reason at all! but is usually back on within 10 minutes.

[bill-e]

I'm happy to report that in the year that I've owned my generator, we have not lost power once. It's kinda like bringing your umbrella to work, almost guarantees it wont rain

Actually, we've been over this time and again.

For battery backup, your best bet although almost as expensive as a generator is a Power Inverter and a deep cycle battery.

The $12 PenPlex D battery air pumps work good also for smaller tanks.

Computer UPS's will work for short periods of time, but are by far the least cost effective (unless you happen to hace about 30 in your garage

If you can get home to start it, the gas generator is your best bet.