TOP 5 THINGS TO NEVER BE WITHOUT! Are you prepared?

[ByronP]

Run it every few months just to keep it fresh. I let a generator sit for a couple of years and when Hurricane Irma took out our power, the generator would start, but only run for a couple of minutes and then die. It wouldn't re-start unless you let it sit idle for 10 minutes. Then it would start and die in a couple of minutes. It was a carburetor float that had 'sagged' over time and wouldn't let enough fuel into the carb to keep it running. Now I test the new big Generac every 3 months.

It is natural gas (flex) and does a test run on it's own every few weeks but you are right I really should do a manual test and make sure everything is good myself on a regular basis. Thank you

 

[DSEKULA]

I'm in a very rural mountain area, we get snowed in for days/weeks and can loose power for that long. I built a battery bank for the tank that will last 11hrs and then have a genny that I can use to recharge the batteries. I run 3 heaters, two on a lead lag configuration and one as a backup if the tank dropped a good deal lower than normal as a backup. They all run through Apex and inkbirds as a failsafe. My tank has two return pumps plumbed in, one can minimally support the tank but the sump level will rise and I will get an alarm. I keep 150gal of nsw on hand and 65 of ro. In a critical failure I have dozens of 5 gallon buckets with appropriately sized heaters that I use to ttm (along with the 150 brute) I have extra bb LEDs just for backup along with a dozen or so air pumps and random cheap powerheads, heaters, you name it when I buy gear I generally buy at least two of everything. I have critical extra components like gaskets, impellers, washers, pump heads, etc for everything.

 

[Dragon52]

I have the following.
1. Spare Heater/Battery operated Air Pump
2. Spare powerhead/wavemaker/Return Pump
3. Spare Ro/di water
4. Buckets/Towels
5. Generator

 

[Biocuber29]

So today's QOTD comes to us an inspired by member @WallyB! I think it's a great topic and would love to hear your thoughts on it as well. So what are we talking about here? We're talking about the TOP 5 THINGS TO NEVER BE WITHOUT! So I decided to come up with my own list and I want to hear what you think the top 5 things are for yourself. So here are mine in no particular order.

1. Generator: Something to give power to your tanks life support equipment in case of a power outage.

2. Mixed Salt Water: Fresh new saltwater ready to initiate a quick water change or to use to house corals and fish in another emergency location. This may also be dry salt with the ability to mix up some new water quickly. Which leads to my next item.

3. Fresh RO Water: The extra fresh water will give you the ability to mix saltwater or give you the ability to mix MORE after you have used the mixed water from my previous point. You can never have too much water IMO.

4. Spare Return Pump: Most hobbyists house equipment like heaters, skimmers, reactors, dosers in a sump or other areas besides the main display. If your return pump dies on you will need a back up to keep the water flowing to these important parts of your system. Just as important is the flow it provides. In the event of a power outage this may be the only item you'll want to be running. See point number one.

5. Spare Tank or Containers: I thought about spare plumbing parts here and they would make #6 on my list but let's pretend you don't have a plumbing issue but you have a leaking tank issue. In this case you're going to need a spare tank or enough containers to house your fish, corals and live rock.

It's hard to choose just the top 5 things because spare heaters, reefing buddies, carbon reactors and things like that are very important but if I have to pick just 5 these would top my list.

So what are your TOP 5 THINGS to never be without?

extra light(not so good) extra pump ( too big) but I think I could try to save some things but I have a tank that’s a 29 bio cube my extra tank is an ancient 100 gallon that’s been dry for a few years, I keep distilled water on Han but not enough for big tank. LOL .

 

[lkriley]

So today's QOTD comes to us an inspired by member @WallyB! I think it's a great topic and would love to hear your thoughts on it as well. So what are we talking about here? We're talking about the TOP 5 THINGS TO NEVER BE WITHOUT! So I decided to come up with my own list and I want to hear what you think the top 5 things are for yourself. So here are mine in no particular order.

1. Generator: Something to give power to your tanks life support equipment in case of a power outage.

2. Mixed Salt Water: Fresh new saltwater ready to initiate a quick water change or to use to house corals and fish in another emergency location. This may also be dry salt with the ability to mix up some new water quickly. Which leads to my next item.

3. Fresh RO Water: The extra fresh water will give you the ability to mix saltwater or give you the ability to mix MORE after you have used the mixed water from my previous point. You can never have too much water IMO.

4. Spare Return Pump: Most hobbyists house equipment like heaters, skimmers, reactors, dosers in a sump or other areas besides the main display. If your return pump dies on you will need a back up to keep the water flowing to these important parts of your system. Just as important is the flow it provides. In the event of a power outage this may be the only item you'll want to be running. See point number one.

5. Spare Tank or Containers: I thought about spare plumbing parts here and they would make #6 on my list but let's pretend you don't have a plumbing issue but you have a leaking tank issue. In this case you're going to need a spare tank or enough containers to house your fish, corals and live rock.

It's hard to choose just the top 5 things because spare heaters, reefing buddies, carbon reactors and things like that are very important but if I have to pick just 5 these would top my list.

So what are your TOP 5 THINGS to never be without?

 

[lkriley]

I keep a spare tank with complete minimal setup (all requires electricity). I keep RO/DI water and mixed saltwater. I have a battery operated air stone, and a couple extra heaters. I really need an electrical source for power outages. But, I do also keep lots of hand/body warmers that I can activate and then put in a large ziplock to float in the tank for winter outages (I live in Michigan). I figure with the warmers and the battery operated air stone I can keep most alive for a short outage. Long term outage (more than a day or so). I'm done...I do have a generator on my wish list for sometime in the next year or two. Knocking on wood right now!

 

[Jon Fishman]

Rodi
Salt
Spare pump
buckets
hydrometer


I can get it all done in a pinch with those things

 

[lkriley]

Tank broke two weeks ago. My top five after the fact.

1- written plan for what if
2-after hour numbers for LFS
3-containers big enough to handle most content
4-circulation pump for all
5-heaters for all

Spare RO or salt may help with a leak but not a break. I called my LFS and two local reefers they put coral in their tanks the LFS brought supplies. 6 hours it took to move everything and clean up.

Just went through that a few weeks ago. I ran to the local Meijer and bought an all in one tank system (largest they carried). Luckily I had been to the LFS just the day before and had lots of fresh saltwater. I was able to grab everything out of the tank and place in buckets, run to Meijer and back (one hour), then get it all up and running in under another hour. If I had not had the water ready and available who knows how long it would have taken. Also, I put my buckets of saltwater in both sides of my sink with max tap water temp. Only a matter of maybe fifteen minutes to get the water up to an acceptable temperature to move all into the buckets, same when I moved all the water to the new tank. Honestly I think I am the luckiest person ever with such a crisis. I lost two fish, that is all. All my corals survived and most of the fish. The fish I lost actually go sucked into the filter system of the new tank. Lesson learned there. Made me sad though because they were my first fish (clowns). ALSO, I started a new 8 gal system on my kitchen counter. It is still cycling. Well I came home from work and it was down water by at least an inch or so. I realized I had a slow leak. So once again I put everything into a bucket with the battery airstone and a spare heater. Put all the live sand in a large ziplock and put that in the bucket also to keep the temp okay. Ran to the store, bought aquarium safe 100% silicone and a gun. Took paper towels and cleaned out the tank and dried it the best I could. Then took a hairdryer to it for awhile. Caulked the tank and waited until the next night and put it all back together. No issues.

 

[sp1187]

full house generator
3 120 quart coolers
salt
rodi water
heaters

no return pump back up. do I need one? if I have pumps for flow in the tank and a UAS (in my sump, but I could move it to my DT) thinking I could at least go 8-10 hours until Lowes/ Home Depot opened to get a temp pond pump. yes? no?

 

[HuneyBear]

It is natural gas (flex) and does a test run on it's own every few weeks but you are right I really should do a manual test and make sure everything is good myself on a regular basis. Thank you

When the generators self test they only JOG. As in it’s not doing any work. You have to turn off power feed to activate the auto switch every so often or they can corrode to the point of not working. I work mine once a year at minimum but I try to do it every 6 months.

1. Natural gas whole house automatic generator. Never runs out of fuel. Backup gas generator. Ups To cover the minute for generator to kick on.
2.pump to switch into return pump to keep water going. Not the same pump but plumbing has been pre-made and it’s just switch out.
3. brute of SW mixed,ready. Spare salt on hand.
4. 50 gal of RODI On hand, 4 jugs to go to water station that has RODI water 1/2 block from my house while I make more.
5. Spare heaters. to many power heads and little pumps from previous smaller tanks. Seriously I don’t remember buying all of them.
6.Half of a hardware store of pvc fittings at least 1 spare of every fitting on the system and 3 5’ sticks of pvc pipe (all my pipes are the same size), socket saver in that size, Spare bulkheads.
7. More little tanks then my wife knows about. In case of emergency’s
8.The wealth of knowledge of this forum and its search function.

*****Most importantly fellow local reef club members contact info to call in for help if need anything beyond the scope of what one person can deal with in short order.*****

 

[S88UNO]

Nice setup. How many gallons are those containers and what are the dimensions if you may point me in the right direction please and thanks in advanced...

Thanks. They are 25 gallon loft tanks for cold water storage. Here is a link to where I got them from https://www.screwfix.com/p/polytank-cold-water-tank-25gallon-uk-690-x-515-x-520mm/10500

 

[robbyg]

Over the 35 years of keeping tanks I have had almost all the bad experiences, Including 3 months without electricity after a Hurricane hit.

Now I keep the following

1) A mostly whole House Generator wired into the house. Keeping it small Balancing run time versus the needs for luxury items. Also it had to be almost silent and run on Gas, because gas is the only thing that is easy to find after a disaster.

2) Spare Pumps for Return and Skimmer.

3) Spare Chiller

4) A full Spare Aquarium Controller including modules and Dosing pump.

5) A Drawer full of Spare plumbing parts and pipe in the garage.

6) Plastic 55 Gallon drum for holding stuff should the Tank break.

7) All spare RODI membranes and filters. Plus spares for RO line, connectors and valves etc.

8) Battery powered air pumps and a 1000 Watt Pure Sine wave inverter should the Generator die.

 

[Sashaka]

So today's QOTD comes to us an inspired by member @WallyB! I think it's a great topic and would love to hear your thoughts on it as well. So what are we talking about here? We're talking about the TOP 5 THINGS TO NEVER BE WITHOUT! So I decided to come up with my own list and I want to hear what you think the top 5 things are for yourself. So here are mine in no particular order.

1. Generator: Something to give power to your tanks life support equipment in case of a power outage.

2. Mixed Salt Water: Fresh new saltwater ready to initiate a quick water change or to use to house corals and fish in another emergency location. This may also be dry salt with the ability to mix up some new water quickly. Which leads to my next item.

3. Fresh RO Water: The extra fresh water will give you the ability to mix saltwater or give you the ability to mix MORE after you have used the mixed water from my previous point. You can never have too much water IMO.

4. Spare Return Pump: Most hobbyists house equipment like heaters, skimmers, reactors, dosers in a sump or other areas besides the main display. If your return pump dies on you will need a back up to keep the water flowing to these important parts of your system. Just as important is the flow it provides. In the event of a power outage this may be the only item you'll want to be running. See point number one.

5. Spare Tank or Containers: I thought about spare plumbing parts here and they would make #6 on my list but let's pretend you don't have a plumbing issue but you have a leaking tank issue. In this case you're going to need a spare tank or enough containers to house your fish, corals and live rock.

It's hard to choose just the top 5 things because spare heaters, reefing buddies, carbon reactors and things like that are very important but if I have to pick just 5 these would top my list.

So what are your TOP 5 THINGS to never be without?

1. Spare 30 gallons of RODI salt and 30 gallons of RODI freshwater
2. Spare return pump and powerhead
3. Spare Heater
4. Generator (I also live in the deep country and get use it at least 5-10xs each year)
5. Cabinet stocked with fish related medicines (everything from copper & cp to antibiotics, etc.)

Ok, so I cheated a little and combined a few things. One person's essentials is another's excess in most things, but I don't think we can limit this type of list to just 5 things and be sure we're covered for all types of emergencies. LOL

 

[Blacktip]

Generator
Large air pump
RO Water
Salt water
Spare heaters
QT
100g stock tank
Fish medicine

 

[tdlawdo]

It is natural gas (flex) and does a test run on it's own every few weeks but you are right I really should do a manual test and make sure everything is good myself on a regular basis. Thank you

My generator runs an auto test every other Sunday night at 930. Good idea i think to always make sure our stuff is working

 

[HuneyBear]

My generator runs an auto test every other Sunday night at 930. Good idea i think to always make sure our stuff is working

I say to do that because that’s what is supposed to be done. Yet, Ironically where I work they argued about paying someone to do that very thing and a lot of our backup generators auto switches had corroded to the point where they wouldn’t activate. So they had to still pay electricians to go, now to spend more time to clean and lubricate switches.

 

[Reeferdude1888]

My spares skimmer, lighting unit, return pump, reactor,
Pump controller. Just in case any fail .

 

[lapin]

My month old nem tank sprung a leak. I did not have everything. I was missing a 20G drilled spare tank.

 

[tdlawdo]

I say to do that because that’s what is supposed to be done. Yet, Ironically where I work they argued about paying someone to do that very thing and a lot of our backup generators auto switches had corroded to the point where they wouldn’t activate. So they had to still pay electricians to go, now to spend more time to clean and lubricate switches.

I am lucky or unlucky as the case may be that we lose electricity at least once a month for a few hours and with most every storm. So in addition to making sure the transfer switch works we get to have it run a small stretch every month. What a nightmare if you think you are protected only to have the back up fail.

 

[DavidDB]

I have wondered if there are small battery-powered filter pumps with aeration possibilities that would seem to be good emergency items. Usually find them for $5 or $10, they only use a few watts, and they give a good flow in smaller tanks plus have an aeration function. Would seem to be a natural product but I have not seen any when I looked online or LFS. Could also be used for traveling/transporting live products. Anybody know about a product like this?