Power outage with a small tank

KStatefan · Aug 11, 2019

hotdrop said:
What’s an example of a good plan for a 40g tank?

A battery backup on a powerhead.

rkpetersen · Aug 11, 2019

KStatefan said:
A battery backup on a powerhead.

Always a good idea but may be overkill for a very small tank.
The Cobalt Rescue Air mentioned earlier might well be enough in such a case.
Note that it can be left in place all the time, not running, but plugged into the wall and with an airstone in the tank.
If the wall power goes off, the Rescue Air will automatically start working.
There may be other brands of battery-operated air pumps with the same auto-on feature.

Also wanted to mention that blowing a fan across the water surface may not be the best approach.
It would do little to improve gas exchange but will cause the tank to cool faster due to evaporation.

Darth.Daddy12 · Aug 11, 2019

rkpetersen said:
Always a good idea but may be overkill for a very small tank.
The Cobalt Rescue Air mentioned earlier might well be enough in such a case.
Note that it can be left in place all the time, not running, but plugged in to the wall and with an airstone in the tank.
If the wall power goes off, the Rescue Air will automatically start working.
There may be other brands of battery-operated air pumps with the same auto-on feature.

You can get second hand UPS backups for next to nothing off swipe swap. They will lower a small powerhead for days. The backup airsrone is priceless in smaller nano tanks though. Cheap and very effective.

My advice some as someone who’s spent hours using hand pump bycucke pump for over a day to inject air into a tank after a hurricane. A backup option is priceless!

Best short term option I found is using a cordless drill to agitate the water for 2 days as I had many batteries for it and next to nothing in terms of options at the time. In Florida during A hurricane you won’t find batteries or batter power devices. Thisworked for several days as a good option but cost me a lot of time both using and worrying. I’ve since put battery backups on all systems in the house as well as a whole home generator. Generator is not automatic so to this day I still use the backup air pumps till I get home from work should something happen.

JumboShrimp · Aug 11, 2019

Will your 40 gallon be a reef tank, or fish only? Because (for example), your fish will need oxygen, whereas your corals will additionally need ‘flow’ that the fish won’t care about. Similarly, the fish can get by without light during even a lengthy power outage.