Hi

I'm interested in starting a Nano-Reef myself. I happen to live in a semi-rural area of NJ. I live in an area that's prone to power disruptions several times a year due to storms bringing down lines. Also power fluctuations.
My question is if I loose power, would the inhabitants of a aquarium expire quickly or could they hang on for a period of time. Is there some kind of UPS that could keep the setup running during an outage.

We're really used to things like this where I live and the longest outage I've seem is maybe 4 hours. More common is something where electric is lost for seconds then surges causing flickering lights.

Any input would be helpful.

Wayne

A battery powered air pump and an air stone would be all you needed for a 4 hour outage. Keep the water moving and you'll be ok.

Usually a 4 hour outage isn't a problem. However, longer outages can cause a tank to crash (due to lack of oxygen). Having a generator on hand would be your best insurance against power outages.

If your pump doesn't use much power, a UPS would probably be the way to go. A maxi-jet 900 uses 8.5 watts, so a 500 watt (probably more then you need in this case, but considering how long the power would be out, might as well get something a tad bit higher in capacity) UPS would more then likely last the full outage.

Just a thought.

If you do get a UPS, make sure you calculate the wattage everything you hook up would require. I would honestly go for bare essentials only for the UPS.

in the long run a big UPS will be cheaper than restocking your tank. keep your eyes open on craigslist and the want-ads for companies trying to clear out old ones, or ask a friend in IT to score you an old one when their job replaces some. I've got my 14g cube entirely on a smart-ups 1000 and even with the lights on the load meter doesn't even start to light up.

They also condition the power to take out sags and spikes and they correct for crappy grounding faults your place might have that can damage electrical stuff over time.

This thing kept servers going for 3-4 hours so I'm betting it'll keep my tank up for a day at least

http://www.nano-reef.com/articles/?article=19

good stuff in that article. remember that water movement > heat for the most part. which is good cuz a powerhead will use way less power than a heater. I have a power inverter hooked up to a car battery that can run a small PH and a 50w heater for 8-10 hours, haven't used it yet, but I tested it.