The power was out at my house for more than a day. This is the first major power failure I've experience since "The blackout" in 2003 which was before I started reef keeping. I've moved within the last year to a rural environment. Where I lived previous all the power lines were underground so there was never a power failure of more than a couple of hours. Previously a couple of PC UPS battery backups covered me.
As soon as I moved I bought a 7500 watt generator and for the first 10 months we've had maybe 3 power failures and none lasting more then 30 minutes. Finally it happened and while you could say I was ready for it in that I had the generator, I really wasn't ready.
I had no idea that a generator takes so much gas! I used maybe 15 gallons of gas perhaps more. Having just one 5 gallon jug is not enough. Even if you have a generator you should probably keep 24hrs worth of gas on hand which means a full generator tank + another gas can at least. From now on I plan on keeping gas on hand and every 6-8 months I'll add it to the car and replace so I don't have to worry about it going bad or adding anything to it.
While the generator powered my tanks including lighting without issue along with fridge and freezer and other things, one Jeabo pump did not like being fed generator power. It works fine again now. I don't have an apex but I have heard they too don't like generator power. Since I had never run the generator I wasn't 100% sure just how long it would last. With that being the case I slept like a new mom with a sick baby as I couldn't say with 100% certainty the generator would run all night. I was paranoid it would go off and every time I went to get more gas I initially thought it wasn't running despite being so loud.
The best solution would be to have this properly wired at the very least with a transfer switch and even more ideally so it automatically switches to generator power without doing anything. That being the case even if I had that and was out of town I still would have lost everything since the generator would have only lasted the first 11 hours. Now I "only" have a 112 gallon reef + 90 fowlr. If I had my dream tank and more expensive livestock like I did in the past I'd look into more long term solutions than a generator just in case. That being said I still have some livestock that is very dear to me and am so relieved that it all made it through. If you have a generator that you've never used or only used for a couple of hours I suggest you consider these things.
All livestock survived and other then having to run extension cords all over the house and then plug everything back into it's original outlets I had no issues. I did sleep about 12hrs after the power came back and still feel like it wasn't enough.
As soon as I moved I bought a 7500 watt generator and for the first 10 months we've had maybe 3 power failures and none lasting more then 30 minutes. Finally it happened and while you could say I was ready for it in that I had the generator, I really wasn't ready.
I had no idea that a generator takes so much gas! I used maybe 15 gallons of gas perhaps more. Having just one 5 gallon jug is not enough. Even if you have a generator you should probably keep 24hrs worth of gas on hand which means a full generator tank + another gas can at least. From now on I plan on keeping gas on hand and every 6-8 months I'll add it to the car and replace so I don't have to worry about it going bad or adding anything to it.
While the generator powered my tanks including lighting without issue along with fridge and freezer and other things, one Jeabo pump did not like being fed generator power. It works fine again now. I don't have an apex but I have heard they too don't like generator power. Since I had never run the generator I wasn't 100% sure just how long it would last. With that being the case I slept like a new mom with a sick baby as I couldn't say with 100% certainty the generator would run all night. I was paranoid it would go off and every time I went to get more gas I initially thought it wasn't running despite being so loud.
The best solution would be to have this properly wired at the very least with a transfer switch and even more ideally so it automatically switches to generator power without doing anything. That being the case even if I had that and was out of town I still would have lost everything since the generator would have only lasted the first 11 hours. Now I "only" have a 112 gallon reef + 90 fowlr. If I had my dream tank and more expensive livestock like I did in the past I'd look into more long term solutions than a generator just in case. That being said I still have some livestock that is very dear to me and am so relieved that it all made it through. If you have a generator that you've never used or only used for a couple of hours I suggest you consider these things.
All livestock survived and other then having to run extension cords all over the house and then plug everything back into it's original outlets I had no issues. I did sleep about 12hrs after the power came back and still feel like it wasn't enough.
