Hurricane Dorian!!! What else do I need to do or get?

[mal7887]

Seems like latest updates keep pushing it further east. Hopefully it keeps moving east and avoids Florida all together!

 

[Dkeller_nc]

Yeah, hopefully you guys don't need the preparation. I live in central NC, so not quite the risk of living on the coast, but as most reefers know, what's a minor inconvenience or even a minor adventure for most folks is a catastrophe for a reef tank.

A couple of thoughts. No ifs, ands or buts, a generator is a must-have if you have a bigger tank with a lot of investment. It is true that you can keep a large tank going with a lot of battery power for a couple of days, but at that point the expense of the chargers/inverters/batteries starts to exceed the cost of a smallish generator. For smaller tanks and nanos, batteries may make more sense, as there's a lot more surface area per volume in the tank, and the power requirements are a lot lower.

For keeping tanks cool, even quite a lot of ice isn't going to come close to one smallish vortex-type fan blowing across the surface of the water. The reason is that 1 gram of frozen water that melts will transfer 80 calories. That same gram of water evaporating from the tank surface will transfer 540 calories. So it's a better bet to run a fan or two across the top of the water powered by the afore-mentioned generator or even a marine deep cycle battery and an inverter. Use the ice for your beer.

 

[ca1ore]

Fully agree that for a big tank, a generator is less luxury than necessity. But it’s not enough to just have a generator, you also have to be prepared with an adequate reservoir of fuel and exercise it frequently enough that it’s not a useless lump when you need it. Two days before a major storm hits is probably too late to get adequate gasoline. I always made sure both car tanks were full along with four 5 gallon gas cans with gas stabilizer. Once storm season passes, any gas left over in the cans gets put into the car. I now have an automatic standby on the house but I still keep the old portable as a backup for the backup - and in the event propane became unavailable.

 

[Dkeller_nc]

Yep, no question. A generator without fuel is just a big door stop. And probably worse than useless, since you'll be thinking you're safe and won't have batteries to run air pumps around. Another aspect of this is to test your generator once a month, and always keep a gasoline stabilizer in the fuel, such as Stabil or Ethanol Shield.

 

[gotmesalty77]

Ive got several more of these batteries that i am going to chain together. I hope to have that last me at least a week with bare essentials running

 

[MW319]

Ive got several more of these batteries that i am going to chain together. I hope to have that last me at least a week with bare essentials running

Nice, looks like we will be on the west side of the storm so hopefully you won’t need to use them or at least maybe not more than a day or two. Good luck brother.

 

[gotmesalty77]

Nice, looks like we will be on the west side of the storm so hopefully you won’t need to use them or at least maybe not more than a day or two. Good luck brother.

I am thinking i run my old Korelia power head in DT and a bubbler and a bubbler in my sump. I'm not sure if should run my return (vectra m2) at all seems like it wouldn't be a good power expense. I cannot decide on a configuration that will maximize my available energy.

 

[MW319]

I am thinking i run my old Korelia power head in DT and a bubbler and a bubbler in my sump. I'm not sure if should run my return (vectra m2) at all seems like it wouldn't be a good power expense. I cannot decide on a configuration that will maximize my available energy.

I’m going to run one of my mp40’s and a battery operated air pump in my DT and a battery operated air pump in my quarantine tank. I was considering running my Vectra M1 in the sump but I read somewhere that I needed the VP013 booster accessory to do that. I wrote down the model number but I haven’t had time to research it.