Tank Management on long trips and during storms

[Phish Tank]

I wasn't sure which forum this belonged in, but I thought since a lot of it has to do with equipment, I stuck it here. But it doesn't really fit, so @Art if it should be elsewhere, please move

Long trip might be measured in months. Put some limits on plants/fish you have. Low biological load. Fewer fish, and smaller fish. Less fish food. No rapid growing stem or floating plants. Random notes below.

You cannot have enough redundancy: multiple filter types, two smaller heaters instead of one large one, two types of feeders in case 1 fails. I even use two lower powered lights instead of one larger one. That way if one light fries, the other can carry on. And of course extra water changes before you leave.

Feeding: Rotating eheim feeder once a day, and i found an el cheapo on amazon that will feed every 4 days (most feed every single day, so check fine print). Set up the feeders and test for a few weeks before you leave. Yes. Weeks. Mine go all year long.

Dosing pump: I use a dosing pump for plant ferts and top off water. I mix my ferts diluted by 2X, and then only fertilize every other day with higher ml. My tank still gets the same dosage of chemicals, just instead of doing 5.5 ml, it's 22 ml. My reasoning: the dosing pump is more accurate with larger volumes. Using a dosing pump for top off water requires a fair amount of tuning, even with a covered tank, and water requirements are different in the summer vs winter for me.

No fast growing plants: no stem plants or fast growing floating plants:Whack plants waaay back before you leave. My last trip I screwed up and had three fast growing plants that just went wild (dwarf water lettuce, dwarf pennywort, and water sprite) and choked out all the light. No more. I think I'm going to limit myself to less ambitious plants.... Anubias, swords, bruce, crypts.... I also lower fert amounts, lower co2 amounts, lower lighting while away on extended trips. These are something I adjust a few weeks before I go, so I can see how it affects water testing numbers. Basically you are slowing down the tank, and praying to the algae gods that you don't get bad algae. So the scapecrunch thread on Middle Earth has been right up my alley. Make sure your CO2 tank isn't running on fumes.

Covered tank: humid environments jam up fish feeders. I keep my tank covered, which also lowers the amount of top of water needed (75 ml every day for my 55g).

Monitoring: I have a webcam or two pointed at the tank from different angles. For 30$, a wyze camera can give a lot of peace of mind. I use Alexa controlled Kasa plugs for my Lights, Co2. They seem rock solid. I use an el cheap dosing pump that isn't wifi controlled, so just in case, I have the 4 pump doser on a Kasa plug too. I feel like some of the apps for dosing pumps and lights can be fussy, and I can't reboot a bunch of stuff from 1000 miles away. If you are using apps for controlling equipment, test that it works when you aren't in bluetooth range, and aren't connected to your home wifi. It can be easy to forget which apps use wifi, and which use bluetooth. Take notes on what you learn so the next trip away goes better.

Try to not make last minute changes before you leave, and have a list of things to do that you always do before a long trip.

 

[Phish Tank]

I wasn't sure which forum this belonged in, but I thought since a lot of it has to do with equipment, I stuck it here. But it doesn't really fit, so @Art if it should be elsewhere, please move. Thanks

So, we are fine, electricity finally on and running water is really close (we are just north of Asheville NC). My tank mostly survived, so I wanted to provide some notes on what I did for my tank for two weeks without power/water. This was all complicated by me just getting back from a looooooong trip right before the hurricane, so I was still catching up on tank maintenance. Some notes....

Test end to end before the power goes out. Make sure your plan actually works. When a hurricane is arriving it's not the best time to start wondering where that extra air pump is. Test how long your battery/inverter last. My little 10,000 mah power bricks I had ran a USB air pump for 24 hours.

The low fish load and non EI plant dosing I normally do actually helped my tank during two weeks without electricity and running water. Tanks that are pushed to the limit probably struggled more during Helene.

Sensitive electronics can be affected by the non perfect sin wave that gas generators puts out. So im thinking next time I'll use a power station (looking at eco flow), which will have a perfect sin wave. Then I'll re-charge the power station via a gas generator, solar, or at a neighbors that has a generac .

Water changes: If a storm is coming, do an extra WC. You might not be able to easily do water changes if power and/or water are out. Think through your normal WC process, do any of the steps require safe running water or power? Another thing that can happen is you might have water, but be under a boil order (boil before using). Also consider that you might want to wait before using tap water for WC, because your town/city might have added something to the water to make it possibly safer to use that might really throw your tank outta whack. Or water lines have debris or mud in them.

Fish O2 and beneficial bacteria: USB connected air bubblers are great, I happened to have a 10$ one lying around. I scrounged up a gang switch and was able to run 3 bubblers off small usb power bricks. The one problem i had was getting them all dialed in so all 3 were working at once from the single USB pump. It did seem a little finicky in that one would stop bubbling randomly, and it was a little more finicky because I was trying to check them via a flashlight. I have under gravel filters on 3/4 or my tank, so ran 2 bubblers in my uplift tubes, and shoved one in my Tidal 55 filter.

Light: figure out an el cheapo full spectrum light with minimal watt usage than your normal high powered lights. That at least gives your plants a fighting chance, but you might not have your regular timers working, so you have to manually turn them on/off

Limit food and ferts. If your filtration, CO2, WC, or lighting is less than normal, really limit foods and ferts . It can be really tempting to feed a little extra because you are so worried about your tanks. Don't do it!

Mental: i went days barely able to remember to change their battery, there were too many distractions with storm recovery. Its hard watching plants suffer by flashlight and worrying about my scaled little friends. For me, the tank went from being a source of joy to a source of worry. And it was hard seeing person after person posting in our Asheville aquatics facebook group of folks trying to rehome fish, or losing tanks. If you are able, think about how you might help other local aquarists in a situation like Ashevilles. My plants look awful, but my fish seem to be OK. As soon as UPS/USPS/Fedex delivery times return to normal, I'll be ordering more plants.

Changes I'll be making: I'm going to get a power station (probably Ecoflow) or two, another USB air pump or two, extra air stones and check valves, some additional sponge filters, some low watt lights, and extra power brick batteries. I might also troll through all my aquarium electronics and actually test with my Kill-a-watt or at least write down how many watts different components need. I'll also make a list of things to do when a storm is approaching, so next time I'm not trying to remember what I did during Helene.

 

[ElleDee]

I'm glad you made it through mostly ok. I'm from the Triangle and I've gone through 1-2 weeks without power from hurricanes before in my life, but Helene left devastation that's difficult to wrap your brain around.

Thank you for writing up your experience. With climate change people ought to be more open minded about the hazards they think they might face. You wouldn't think western NC would be devastated by a hurricane or that Texas would have a winter storm that could take down the entire power grid, but it still happened. I know I need to come up with a better plan for ice storms specifically - I learned last year that tanks get cold fast without heat. (Luckily most of my fish can handle a chill, but I wasn't sure my espei rasbora would make it. They did, but it was not a great situation.)

 

[Art]

@Phish Tank, thanks for writing this up. I've moved it to the General Discussion forum as I think this is a topic that everyone needs to think about. It feels like anywhere you live can have an emergency situation so you need to learn to be prepared to protect your investment and, more importantly, protect the living things you are caring for.

I'm glad you and yours are OK. I love Asheville and it was difficult to see the pictures of the devastation. I'll be up in the Highlands area this Thanksgiving. Been going up there for years. My heart goes out to all of you in that area.

As you know, us Floridians took it on the chin twice in about two weeks. I have friends that lost everything with 5 feet of water inside their homes. Thankfully, my family and I are OK and didn't get hit. No power outage for me this time. Just some power spikes.

Sensitive electronics can be affected by the non perfect sin wave that gas generators puts out. So im thinking next time I'll use a power station (looking at eco flow), which will have a perfect sin wave. Then I'll re-charge the power station via a gas generator, solar, or at a neighbors that has a generac .

Here is the site for Eco Flow power stations. I didn't know about them until you mentioned it. I've been speaking with @Pepere about back up power and how best to do it for aquariums. I'm definitely going to look into this given that I can get a smaller one that works in my apartment and I can power it with solar panels. We get plenty of sun after a hurricane.

Your comments on damage to sensitive electronics isn't something I thought about but I should have. I have an Neptune Apex controller with many sensors that would be susceptible to electrical issues.

Water changes: If a storm is coming, do an extra WC. You might not be able to easily do water changes if power and/or water are out. Think through your normal WC process, do any of the steps require safe running water or power? Another thing that can happen is you might have water, but be under a boil order (boil before using). Also consider that you might want to wait before using tap water for WC, because your town/city might have added something to the water to make it possibly safer to use that might really throw your tank outta whack. Or water lines have debris or mud in them.

Another important point that many, including myself miss. I use tap water for my water changes and rely on our water management system to put out consistent tap that I can control. However, you're absolutely right that after an event, given the massive water runoff, loss of power and need to heavily purify water, there is no telling what is in tap right after a hurricane.

Not only will I be doing pre water changes but I'm going to likely store a week or two of water to use for post water changes.

Fish O2 and beneficial bacteria:

This is something I have thought about but I do find many don't. One thing is keeping your main water column oxygenated with a bubbler. Another is keeping the beneficial bacteria in your canister filter alive if it goes days without power. They will all die and you will start from scratch when the power is restored.

What I do is take the filter contents out of the canister filters and move them to the water column. Sponges are easy. The bio media I put into mesh bags and hang in the water column until things get back to normal. At least I have a fighting chance to save the bacterial population in the filter.

Changes I'll be making: I'm going to get a power station (probably Ecoflow) or two, another USB air pump or two, extra air stones and check valves, some additional sponge filters, some low watt lights, and extra power brick batteries. I might also troll through all my aquarium electronics and actually test with my Kill-a-watt or at least write down how many watts different components need. I'll also make a list of things to do when a storm is approaching, so next time I'm not trying to remember what I did during Helene.

Also great advice.

Knowing how much wattage each component needs will come in handy. My Apex can tell me that but a simple Kill-a-watt can do it too. Then I know how much power I will need to keep life support systems going.

We discussed having a plan as also a critical component of good tank husbandry. Don't kick the can until you have to think about it. Do it now.

Also, test, test, test. Don't wait for a storm emergency to find out that something you were counting on doesn't work.

Let's keep this thread going with advice so that we have a place that people can refer to in designing their own plans.

Finally, what size power station do you think you will go with?

 

[Art]

*** I've merged @Phish Tank's threads into this one to consolidate the discussion and make it easier to find. ***

 

[Pepere]

Here is the site for Eco Flow power stations. I didn't know about them until you mentioned it. I've been speaking with @Pepere about back up power and how best to do it for aquariums. I'm definitely going to look into this given that I can get a smaller one that works in my apartment and I can power it with solar panels.

Ecoflow is without question a company that makes quality products. The pros behind them is that they are compact all in one products you don’t have to engineer yourself and are easily portable. I believe the Delta ecowflow pro is the one that has the ability to be plugged in to an EV charging station for fairly quick recharge and a pair of them can be joined together to provide 240 voltage…

There are of course downsides to a product like this as well…. In its very essence it is a charger, charge controller, inverter and battery all in one. As such you are locked in to a proprietary product from a single company. At 59 I am old enough to have seen companies come and go…. In 5 years if a component in the item fails, and the company no longer exists, or decides it isnt worth providing replacement parts for an item that has been discontinued, well, you have a paperweight on your hands… and a possibly dangerous one at that as LiFePO4 batteries can hold a lot of energy in them and come with some risk though less than other Lithium ion chemistries…

I assembled a killowatt battery back up system at my house with an auto transfer to power our boiler automatically in case of a power outage. As such it seamlessly shifts between grid and battery power to keep the boiler running. I also have a 120 volt ac circuit running through the house to key points that is normally in powered but that circuit can either be plugged in to an inverter or a generator. It is isolated from grid power and in essence is functionally a permanently wired extension cord. I can draw off power to keep my refrigerator and freezer cold as well as run my dishwasher or microwave. One does of course need to marshal load distribution, power storage..It featured deep cycle lead acid batteries, an automatic charger and a 1000 watt inverter. It worked well for 5 years, but lead acid batteries while inherently much safer than LiFePO4 batteries have a much shorter lifespan even when not drawing stored energy on a regular basis. And the Batteries themselves are very heavy for their size, and you are generally limited to drawing out only between 50 - 80% of their stored power…. The deeper the discharge theshorter their lifespan. The batteries are now depleted to where their available stored energy potential is insufficient for our needs. Rather than replace with new lead acid batteries, I am upgrading the system to LiFePO4 batteries with a new LiFePo4 automatic charger (charging curve optimized for the battery chemistry) a new 2000 watt pure sine wave inverter with remote shut off and significantly upgrading fuses. The new system will provide me 2.5 killowatts hours of usable stored energy and presumably the batteries may well last my lifetime. LiFePO4 can sustain a 95% depth of discharge daily for 10 years and retain 80% capacity after 10 years of such use. With occasional use, lifespan is much longer.

The advantage of my system is that if a single component fails I can replace that component with a single component off the shelf, any manufacturer. It is less money outlaid up front as well for similar power output, and I am not tied to any individual company. I also have the ability to increase storage capacity cheaper, and to add inverters to the bussbar either to increase load capacity or as emergency repair if a single inverter fails. I do have spare inverters.

The downside is that it is not as compact or portable and requires significant knowledge, ability to construct safely and not cause significant risk. I was an ABYC certified marine electrician and take that safety seriously…

The Ecoflows are quality products and I did give them some consideration before deciding to rebuild and upgrade my own system.

I just thought I would share potential downsides to that solution…

 

[JuJuFish]

I’m very interested in this topic also. Living in Louisiana, we are subject to hurricanes, tornadoes, and even ice storms. I have a small Honda E2200 gasoline generator which I’ve used in the past, alternating between powering the refrigerator and freezer then the aquariums (canister filters, heaters when necessary, lights.). Back and forth to keep everything running, more or less. It works but is less than ideal. It’s heavy, loud, and then there are the fumes. So I’ve been considering an Ecoflow.

But … we also have a small camper with a new LiFePO4 12v 100 Ah battery along with an older set of 100w solar panels. So on to my question … is there a way to make the existing LiFePO4 battery work for powering our needs? Charging it with the generator and/or solar panels? Is that difficult to do? Would I be better off just buying the Ecoflow?

Zero to limited electrical skills but can follow directions if they are not too difficult. And don’t have a risk of blowing something up or catching the house on fire. . Thanks!

 

[Pepere]

So on to my question … is there

Yes.

You could have an inverter installed in the camper to run off the battery and then bring an extension cord into the house.

You could recharge the battery with the generator as well, when the solar panels are not keeping up with demand.

Given the gasoline shortages large areas of Florida are experiencing currently, having a battery back up system with the ability to recharge with solar has definite appeal.

 

[Pepere]

Would I be better off just buying the Ecoflow?

The inverter could be under $250.00 plus installation…. A 100 amp hour battery would give around 1000 watt hours. Ie 100 watts for 10 hours or 10 watts for 100 hours…..

A fridge consumes a little over a killowatt a day. An air pump runs on roughly 3-6 watts depending on model. 36 - 70 watt hours a day…

General rule of thumb is to allow 300 watts of solar panel per 100 amp hours of battery which allows for more charging on cloudier days…

 

[JuJuFish]

Thanks so much @Pepere for this info.

You could have an inverter installed in the camper to run off the battery and then bring an extension cord into the house.

The camper already has outlets, even one on the outside, that I can plug an extension cord into. So it already has an inverter? That’s a dumb question but I’m asking it anyway.

The solar panel I have (that is only 100 watts) has a plug that goes directly into a port on the side of the camper that connects to the battery. The controller is attached to the panel which I don’t think is ideal. And the cord from the panel to the camper isn’t long enough to reach the sunny part of the yard. It’s fine in a campground but not so much where the camper is parked at the house. I guess my options are to move the controller next to the battery then get a longer cord from there to the panel so it will reach the sun. And probably beef up the panel to a 300 watt system. Or rely on charging with the generator. Am I on the right track?

 

[Pepere]

The camper already has outlets, even one on the outside, that I can plug an extension cord into. So it already has an inverter? That’s a dumb question but I’m asking it anyway.

Can you get power from those outlets if the camper is not itself plugged in to power?

Most campers have a plug that plugs in to electrical service at a campground.

 

[JuJuFish]

Can you get power from those outlets if the camper is not itself plugged in to power?

Ahhhhh, I forgot that part of the equation. I don’t think the outlets work unless it is plugged into shore power.

We can take this discussion to pm if we need to spare the forum from this probably unique line of questioning.

 

[Phish Tank]

Here is the site for Eco Flow power stations. I didn't know about them until you mentioned it. I've been speaking with @Pepere about back up power and how best to do it for aquariums. I'm definitely going to look into this given that I can get a smaller one that works in my apartment and I can power it with solar panels. We get plenty of sun after a hurricane.

I'm not sure which size I'll go for. Wanting to slow down and investigate some because if I start spending I want to make sure I'm not over preparing because of the situation we are going through now. For instance, I'm starting with a list of problems instead of starting by filling up my amazon cart.

Another important point that many, including myself miss. I use tap water for my water changes and rely on our water management system to put out consistent tap that I can control. However, you're absolutely right that after an event, given the massive water runoff, loss of power and need to heavily purify water, there is no telling what is in tap right after a hurricane.

Not only will I be doing pre water changes but I'm going to likely store a week or two of water to use for post water changes.

Definitely a good idea if a WC is needed to keep the tank in balance. Running water in our place finally turned on today, after 2 weeks.... but the town said their is a boil advisory until further notice. I tested some of the water out of the tap, and it's close to the usual expected tap water here ( TDS 50, ph a little over 7 not fully degassed, kh 1, gh 3), but I think they've cranked up chlorine or chloramine ). I'm not planning on using it for a WC for a while.

This is something I have thought about but I do find many don't. One thing is keeping your main water column oxygenated with a bubbler. Another is keeping the beneficial bacteria in your canister filter alive if it goes days without power. They will all die and you will start from scratch when the power is restored.

Good idea pulling filter media, my filter hadn't been recently cleaned because we had been out of town, so I hoped the bubbler in the Tidal would work.

 

[Phish Tank]

There are of course downsides to a product like this as well…. In its very essence it is a charger, charge controller, inverter and battery all in one. As such you are locked in to a proprietary product from a single company.

Proprietary lock in is something I despise as a software geek, you are soooo right about that. Separate components would be nice, but I don't see a lot of user friendly options for that.

It sounds like you've got a great system rigged up for your place, and it's great that it keeps your boiler and a lot of things going. And permanently wired extension coord, that's pretty cool.

I'm liking the flexibility of some of the eco flow things, I can charge it from a gas generator, from my car engine, solar, or from my neighbors natural gas generac.

I think we will probably get some sort of eco flow power station, a smaller portable dual fuel LP/gas generator, some small solar panel, and some odds and ends with lighting. We have multiple heat sources in the house so if the heat pump is out, we can make do with the Jotul wood stove, natural gas fireplace. Luckily our cooking stove is natural gas too.

 

[JuJuFish]

I think we will probably get some sort of eco flow power station

@Phish Tank Did you get an Ecoflow? I’m thinking about getting one with the Black Friday sale.

 

[Phish Tank]

Did you get an Ecoflow? I’m thinking about getting one with the Black Friday sale.

Not yet, I was also thinking (hoping?) I would wait to see Black Friday pricing. Additionally I was hoping the expanded River 3 would be available, but it still isn't out.

Lastly, Bluetti is another option I'm pondering. Their pricing seems better than Ecoflow.

 

[JuJuFish]

I went ahead and ordered an Ecoflow Delta 2 with Black Friday pricing from Amazon. Not sure if their stated MSRP is legit but the price seemed reasonable.

 

[Art]

Black Friday deals have started: Ecoflow Black Friday Sale

 

[JuJuFish]

The price is now even less than what I paid. $399 for the Delta 2.

Amazon.com

 

[Phish Tank]

I went ahead and grabbed an ecoflow river 3 and a 110w solar panel on sale. After Helene we also got a dual fuel gas /propane generator. So in a prolonged outage, the plan is the gas generator is used for an hour or so a few times a day to keep fridge and deep freeze going. Ecoflow can be trickle charged from solar, and charged from generator as well. Ecoflow powers and charges small bits: tanks, phones, lanterns, smaller power banks.

Also tried the new Aquarium Coop battery backup air pump. Its input is USB C connected, and its battery can be run in a power saving mode (15 seconds on, 15 seconds off). It has one other nifty feature which is it can be totally off, and only turn on if AC power goes out. So it can be an air stone that only comes on in power outage, especially convenient because unfortunately the unit I got was pretty noisy.

In other news, Asheville just got “potable” water this week, it was 50 days since the hurricane without potable water. “Potable” is in quotes for a reason, because the chlorine content is still mighty high, and they have been adding unusual stuff (probably aluminum sulfate and caustic soda) to the Asheville water supply for weeks to attempt to get the sediment to settle out. I am fortunate to be on a non Asheville water system.