Backup for Heater

[ggNoRe]

Unfortunately I was one of the millions of people who loss power in Houston in very cold weather. I have an ecotech battery backup for flow but never thought to get any form of backup for a heater. The result was 4 dead fish. Thankfully this is a new setup as the casualties could have been much much worse. Before I move forward and aquire several more fish and corals I was looking for options to be prepared if something like this ever happens again. My heater is a 300W Jageir hooked up to an Inkbird. Also it would be nice to also have something cheap to cool the water about 5-10 degrees if something like this happens in the middle of the summer.

Thanks

 

[Quietman]

Portable generator really is only backup when power is out for days in too cold or too hot weather.

Second to that is large deep cycle batteries and an inverter. Perhaps with charger from solar or car.

 

[zalick]

5000w briggs stratton. Extra heaters and a chiller.

 

[ggNoRe]

Thank you! May just get an inverter since they are so cheap and should work fine as long as I'm at home.

 

[HuduVudu]

I am here with you.

My plans, of course, center around hurricanes. Fortunately I was able to adapt to this problem. I have a 20 gallon and a 65 gallon. First off I just want to say that you should ALWAYS have backup up heaters. No please do as I say and not as I have done. Fortunately for me a friend offered a heater before the storm and I almost didn't take it. I am thankful I did.

I am running a Honda EUR1000i generator. It is keeping the tanks to temp but because I am running so much wattage in heaters I have to leave the lights off. During the day when it got down to 12F my indoor temps were at 45F. I am using two 300w heaters on my 65. My 20 had a 150w heater but it seems to have crapped out so I had to pull two 50w heaters to get my tank warm. I was able to keep the 20 at about 73 and the 65 at about 71.

The key to dealing with tank temps is to get your backup up immediately even in the summer every minute counts. I had a SNAFU with my generator and if you are bored you can read about it on my build thread. When you lose power you should not wait to see if the power comes back up. You will wait too long. I was watching my tank lose a degree every 15-30 minutes. Because it took me so long to get my back up in place my tank plummeted to 68F. You can't wait.

I have tested and worked out heat problems because hurricanes usually come when the weather is warm. The thing that people will forget about is that you will lose you house cooling and you have to test without a cooled house to get a true representation. Air is about your only choice for cooling and because it is usually really humid outside you won't have a nice dry household climate to drive your fans. Plan accordingly.

I have been in Houston for quite a while now and I have had family here for almost as long as I have been alive. I have to say this freeze is unprecedented. Not something I would have planned for, but fortunately I was planning for the power out and I was able to adapt my plan. Thankfully I had a plan.

Hope that helps.

 

[ggNoRe]

I am here with you.

My plans, of course, center around hurricanes. Fortunately I was able to adapt to this problem. I have a 20 gallon and a 65 gallon. First off I just want to say that you should ALWAYS have backup up heaters. No please do as I say and not as I have done. Fortunately for me a friend offered a heater before the storm and I almost didn't take it. I am thankful I did.

I am running a Honda EUR1000i generator. It is keeping the tanks to temp but because I am running so much wattage in heaters I have to leave the lights off. During the day when it got down to 12F my indoor temps were at 45F. I am using two 300w heaters on my 65. My 20 had a 150w heater but it seems to have crapped out so I had to pull two 50w heaters to get my tank warm. I was able to keep the 20 at about 73 and the 65 at about 71.

The key to dealing with tank temps is to get your backup up immediately even in the summer every minute counts. I had a SNAFU with my generator and if you are bored you can read about it on my build thread. When you lose power you should not wait to see if the power comes back up. You will wait too long. I was watching my tank lose a degree every 15-30 minutes. Because it took me so long to get my back up in place my tank plummeted to 68F. You can't wait.

I have tested and worked out heat problems because hurricanes usually come when the weather is warm. The thing that people will forget about is that you will lose you house cooling and you have to test without a cooled house to get a true representation. Air is about your only choice for cooling and because it is usually really humid outside you won't have a nice dry household climate to drive your fans. Plan accordingly.

I have been in Houston for quite a while now and I have had family here for almost as long as I have been alive. I have to say this freeze is unprecedented. Not something I would have planned for, but fortunately I was planning for the power out and I was able to adapt my plan. Thankfully I had a plan.

Hope that helps.

Helps a lot. Thank you. What do you have in case of a summer outtage?

 

[Jekyl]

5000w briggs stratton. Extra heaters and a chiller.

I have a 5500. Shut off main breaker to the house and plug in the 220. Will run your entire house.

 

[HuduVudu]

Helps a lot. Thank you. What do you have in case of a summer outtage?

Same generator. I can run the lights and everything when I don't have to deal with the heaters. I am definitely under capacity because my plan was for a warm time after the power outage. On my 20 I have a 24VDC Noctua fan, and on the 60 I have a GHL 3 fan bank.

I adapted the fan to my Apex so I can control it from there. Was a really easy adapt just had to splice a wire. The fan is loud and I think is is 3000CFM, but handles cooling well for that tank. I have not even had a chance to use or test the GHL fan bank yet. I will have to tinker when things warm. up.

 

[ggNoRe]

Decided to go with just a $50 inverter and 2 80ft extension cords.

After long consideration it doesn't seem to make sense to spend $8,000-14,000 for a full stand by generator system for something I've only seen happen once in 37 years. Also the inverter theoretically would have done the trick and could come in handy for a lot of other possible issues in the future. It can keep my return pump and heater running for as long as I have a car that runs.

Thank you all for the input.

 

[Eddielg]

I was lucky when Hurricane Sandy hit us in November several years ago. We lost juice for 7 days and I luckily did not loose a fish. During daytime hours I filled pans with tank water and heated them up on our gas grill, then dumped water back into tank. At night we taped hand warmers all around tank and wrapped tank with several layers blankets for insulation, inside house dropped into the 40's and by morning tank would drop to upper 60's. For oxygen I used the battery powered aerators that we use on our portable bait well.
Hope this helps some of you in the future.
Ed

 

[HuduVudu]

Just remember fuel makes the world go round.