Hi guys and gals. Well, the power went off here two days ago during a ferocius
storm which knocked out power to 100,000 homes and businesses in the Louisville
area. My power just came on just a while ago today. I was beginning to have
real concerns about my fish. When the power went off, of course, so did the
pump to the pond. Yesterday morning, when I got up, I went out to feed the
fish, and they were all at the surface gasping for air (the catfish had his head
almost completely out of water). I scrambled to find a way to remedy the
situation. Here is what I did. I pulled the UPS (uninterruptible power supply)
off of my computer and connected a 6 watt air pump to it, and dropped an
airstone into the pond,and ran an extension chord into the house to power the
pump on the protein skimmer for my marine tank. Unfortunately, the battery only
lasted about 7 hours, but it brought the fish around from their funk (the
catfish was still sluggish though - but then, he's two feet long, and has a
higher oxygen demand). When the batteries drained, I drove over to my brother's
house and begged him for one of his UPS's. He reluctantly agreed. I waited
until dark, then turned it on so that it would have oxygen during the night. It
ran out of power at about 3:00 this morning. When I got up at 6:30 this A.M,
the fish were ok, except that the catfish was still sluggish. At this point I
was really starting to worry, because the news was saying that the power might
not be back on for many until after the weekend. So I called the power company
and asked them who I should bill the cost of replacing my thousands of dollars
of fish to (a white lie, but what the hell. I know that they were working very
hard to restore the power - it was the worst outage we've had since the tonrado
outbreak of 1974, but I was getting desparate). An hour later, my lights came
on - thank God for that. I really didn't want to rent a generator for who knows
how many days. I think I got lucky this time. Next time, who knows?

Jan,

Sounds like a REALLY inexpensive and very effective solution to
the problem. The small UPSs available for under $50 only put out
rated power for about 10 minutes, and there is no way to recharge
their batteries until the power comes back on!!!

PlainBill

On Thu, 15 Jul 2004 10:28:56 -0700, ~ jan JJsPond.us
wrote:

Jan tried something interesting,
kathy :-)

George, I really feel for you, but I think if I lived anywhere around or
especially east of the Mississippi, we'd have a generator. As is, as K30
menitoned, last winter we did have a power outage of 6.5 hours at negative
19 (I think it was -10 in my micro-climate). Luckily my set up in winter
self drains and we had snow cover, so the ponds were insulated and I had no
problems.

Now yesterday's power outage was more scary, with temps hitting that 100+
mark. After the outage of winter, DH purchased a simple 2 plug-in inverter
to run off a car's battery. Cost around $20. When he bought it I thought it
was silly and a car's battery wouldn't last that long. Well was I
surprised.

Son, who just couldn't wait to try out this new toy, got it hooked up and
extension cord out to the pond within minutes. The 2nd plug-in he ran
extension cords to my aquariums rotating between them to keep the filters
aerated. Due to most of the fish being outside, he just wanted to keep the
filters refreshed, since cleaning them is his chore. ;o)

Like you, he ran his tropical tanks off his computer's UPS.

With the inverter the van's battery ran the pond for 90 minutes before the
inverter signaled that the battery was getting low. Per the directions we
started up the van and let it idle for 10-15 minutes, with the inverter
connected. We then turned off the van, and the battery lasted another hour
before the signal went off again, just as our power came back on.

That $20 invested really made a big difference in my life, my only worry
was the frozen foods, any idea how long an opened freezer will keep things
frozen?

The other big difference is that when the power is off more than 20 minutes
in that kind of heat, depending on your filter, you either have to flush it
or clean it. So I would have had to be out in the dark putting a pump in
the pump chamber and running it for 30 minutes on the lawn, restarting the
filter, adding water/dechlor. and putting everything away, etc.. Instead, I
was able to get on my computer as soon as power came on. ;o) ~ jan


See my ponds and filter design:
http://users.owt.com/jjspond/

~Keep 'em Wet!~
Tri-Cities WA Zone 7a
To e-mail see website

He that would make his own liberty secure must guard even his enemy from oppression, for if he violates this duty, he establishes a precedent that will reach to himself.
-Thomas Paine

"RichToyBox" wrote in message news:4VFJc.85974$a24.56439@attbi_s03...
I have a large air pump that is piped to both ponds and it is hooked to an
inverter at all times. The inverter is connected to the largest capacity
automotive battery that I could find which is connected to a battery charger
set on trickle charge.

Piping up from my experience with batteries in my 73 GMC Motorhome. If
you are using an ordinary battery trickle charger you may not achieve
the result you want. In order to keep batteries on charge constantly
you need to investigate a 'smart charger' which will cycle the
batteries. Otherwise you may run them dry. We [the GMC group] have
good success with the Progressive Dynamics charger with the Charge
Wizard upgrade. Here is the story from them:
http://www.progressivedyn.com/servic...ry_basics.html
or
http://snipurl.com/7vgb
Automotive batteries are cheap and readily available. They are
designed to sustain a high current draw for a short time. For maximum
capacity and long life you may be better off with 'mobility cart'
batteries. Your application is actually more like a solar storage
system, anyway. A solar charger may suit your needs better, anyway,
and there are small units which plug into an accesory plug in a car to
keep the battery fresh. See eBay.
Being, I hope, helpful,
--
Crashj

"PlainBill" wrote in message
...
Jan,

Sounds like a REALLY inexpensive and very effective solution to
the problem. The small UPSs available for under $50 only put out
rated power for about 10 minutes, and there is no way to recharge
their batteries until the power comes back on!!!

PlainBill

I bought a power inverter Friday from Radio Shack. It is rated at 140 watts,
115 volts, continuous duty. It should run an air pump (6 watts) for quite a
while. When the power starts gettng critical, a light comes on, and it shuts
down. Then I can just start the car, let the battery re-charge, and turn it
back on. I'm not sure how long it will run the pump before the battery gets too
low, but it is a better solution, I think than the UPS. But I still have the
UPS if I need it.

On Thu, 15 Jul 2004 10:28:56 -0700, ~ jan JJsPond.us
wrote:

Jan tried something interesting,
kathy :-)

George, I really feel for you, but I think if I lived anywhere around or
especially east of the Mississippi, we'd have a generator. As is, as K30
menitoned, last winter we did have a power outage of 6.5 hours at negative
19 (I think it was -10 in my micro-climate). Luckily my set up in winter
self drains and we had snow cover, so the ponds were insulated and I had no
problems.

Now yesterday's power outage was more scary, with temps hitting that 100+
mark. After the outage of winter, DH purchased a simple 2 plug-in inverter
to run off a car's battery. Cost around $20. When he bought it I thought it
was silly and a car's battery wouldn't last that long. Well was I
surprised.

Son, who just couldn't wait to try out this new toy, got it hooked up and
extension cord out to the pond within minutes. The 2nd plug-in he ran
extension cords to my aquariums rotating between them to keep the filters
aerated. Due to most of the fish being outside, he just wanted to keep the
filters refreshed, since cleaning them is his chore. ;o)

Like you, he ran his tropical tanks off his computer's UPS.

With the inverter the van's battery ran the pond for 90 minutes before the
inverter signaled that the battery was getting low. Per the directions we
started up the van and let it idle for 10-15 minutes, with the inverter
connected. We then turned off the van, and the battery lasted another hour
before the signal went off again, just as our power came back on.

That $20 invested really made a big difference in my life, my only worry
was the frozen foods, any idea how long an opened freezer will keep things
frozen?

The other big difference is that when the power is off more than 20 minutes
in that kind of heat, depending on your filter, you either have to flush it
or clean it. So I would have had to be out in the dark putting a pump in
the pump chamber and running it for 30 minutes on the lawn, restarting the
filter, adding water/dechlor. and putting everything away, etc.. Instead, I
was able to get on my computer as soon as power came on. ;o) ~ jan


See my ponds and filter design:
http://users.owt.com/jjspond/

~Keep 'em Wet!~
Tri-Cities WA Zone 7a
To e-mail see website

He that would make his own liberty secure must guard even his enemy from
oppression, for if he violates this duty, he establishes a precedent that will
reach to himself.
-Thomas Paine

My guys do impress me every now and then. ;o)

The UPS my son has, he said he got for something under $100 at Costco and
it ran his two aquariums with heaters for close to 5 hours and then it
started to complain about the power draw. At that time he took it off the
small tank and it ran the larger one right up to the power coming back on
an hour later.... it had just started to complain with beeps when the power
came back on. House was down to 55 degrees upstairs, so it was really
important to keep his tropical tanks warm. My tanks are all goldfish, and
they came thru it fine, didn't even mess up the filters. ~ jan

Sounds like a REALLY inexpensive and very effective solution to
the problem. The small UPSs available for under $50 only put out
rated power for about 10 minutes, and there is no way to recharge
their batteries until the power comes back on!!!

PlainBill

(Do you know where your water quality is?)

On Mon, 19 Jul 2004 22:28:32 -0400, George wrote:

I bought a power inverter Friday from Radio Shack. It is rated at 140 watts,
115 volts, continuous duty. It should run an air pump (6 watts) for quite a
while. When the power starts gettng critical, a light comes on, and it shuts
down. Then I can just start the car, let the battery re-charge, and turn it
back on. I'm not sure how long it will run the pump before the battery gets too
low, but it is a better solution, I think than the UPS. But I still have the
UPS if I need it.

Just some comments but these are based on UK cars and batteries but
should give you some idea:

Assuming the inverter is 100% efficient 6 watts at 12 volts is 0.5
amps. My battery is 60 amp/hours so will run the pump for 120 hours
(60/0.5).

When the light comes on you may not have enough juice in the battery to
start the car, it could well need 100 amps surge to get the engine
turning over. Car batteries are not designed for deep discharge and
that will damage the battery.

My car (2.5 litre) uses 0.7 imperial gallons an hour on tickover and if
you have a 100 amp alternator it will in theory take 36 minutes to
fully charge your battery. Unfortunately it doesn't work like that
since you can't put much more than 6 amps into the battery for long
without it getting hot and gassing. As the charge in the battery rises
the charge rate falls and it takes something like 5 hours to fully
charge.

I would suggest you run the car for 20 minutes every day to keep the
battery topped up and then you shouldn't be draining the battery much
so you will be able to start the engine and avoid damaging the battery.

Also if the battery is over three years old there is a good chance it's
worn out and even the low current for the pump will flatten it
overnight but if this was the case you'd probably find it hard to start
if it had been left for a couple of days. That's based on average use
and no one is really average :-)

--
Regards - Rodney Pont
The from address exists but is mostly dumped,
please send any emails to the address below
e-mail ngpsm4 (at) infohitsystems (dot) ltd (dot) uk

Its been posted here that you can use hydrogen peroxide @1cup per 100
gallons to add oxygen, is that true. Has anyone really done this?




On Fri, 16 Jul 2004 16:24:25 -0400, " George"
wrote:


"Crashj" wrote in message
. com...
" George" wrote in message
...
"Crashj" wrote in message
om...
" George" wrote in message
.. .
Hi guys and gals. Well, the power went off here two days ago during a
ferocius storm which knocked out power to 100,000 homes and businesses
in the Louisville area. My power just came on just a while ago today.
I was beginning to have real concerns about my fish.

Small generators capable of 3000 watts can be had for less that $400.
You will need a lot of gasoline, of course.

Yes, I am aware of this. Try running one in the middle of the night in a
suburban neighborhood and see how long it takes before someone gets
violent over the noise.

So what happens to your fish when the Rapture comes??

I don't have a problem with raptors?

Snork! [laughter]

Just kidding.

If noise is a concern go for the Honda portables which are demand
regulated. You cannot hear them at all from more than a few feet away.
--
Crashj

I bought a power inverter instead. 140 watts output, from radio shack. It
should let me run the water pump instead of just the air pump. My pump is 124
watts 1/6 hp.

On Mon, 19 Jul 2004 21:11:41 -0700, ~ jan JJsPond.us
wrote:

My guys do impress me every now and then. ;o)

SNIP

Hey, just because we're short half a chromosome doesn't mean we men
don't have our uses now and then. G

PlainBill
He that would make his own liberty secure must guard even his enemy from oppression, for if he violates this duty, he establishes a precedent that will reach to himself.
-Thomas Paine

"Ka30P" wrote in message
...

And here I was feeling sorry for myself with a five hour power outage last
night. Temps were 101 when it went out though...

Jan tried something interesting, I'll e her so she can tell you about it. Her
DH bought it after we had a power outage last winter (19 below that day).
Something to do with car batteries and her ponds and fish tanks.


kathy :-)
algae primer
http://hometown.aol.com/ka30p/myhomepage/garden.html

I thought about using a car battery, but my air pump and all of my water pumps
are 120 volts AC. There is a 12 volt DC pump that you can buy that would work
for short-term use (I used to used them to purge environmental wells before
collecting samples), but I've never had the need to have one handy before. And
it really isn't designed for continuous duty. I'd be interested in Knowing what
Jan did.

"Rodney Pont" wrote in message
news:atcfzvasbuvgflfgrzfygqhx.i15kar0.pminews@ihs1 ...
On Mon, 19 Jul 2004 22:28:32 -0400, George wrote:

I bought a power inverter Friday from Radio Shack. It is rated at 140 watts,
115 volts, continuous duty. It should run an air pump (6 watts) for quite a
while. When the power starts gettng critical, a light comes on, and it shuts
down. Then I can just start the car, let the battery re-charge, and turn it
back on. I'm not sure how long it will run the pump before the battery gets
too
low, but it is a better solution, I think than the UPS. But I still have the
UPS if I need it.

Just some comments but these are based on UK cars and batteries but
should give you some idea:

Assuming the inverter is 100% efficient 6 watts at 12 volts is 0.5
amps. My battery is 60 amp/hours so will run the pump for 120 hours
(60/0.5).

The problem with that is that the pump that the inverter is powering is 6 watts
at 115 volts, not 12 volts. But I assume that you are referring to the current
drawn from the battery.

When the light comes on you may not have enough juice in the battery to
start the car, it could well need 100 amps surge to get the engine
turning over. Car batteries are not designed for deep discharge and
that will damage the battery.

The inverter is designed not to discharge the battery to the extent that the car
will not start. My car battery, by the way has 400 amps of cranking power.

My car (2.5 litre) uses 0.7 imperial gallons an hour on tickover and if
you have a 100 amp alternator it will in theory take 36 minutes to
fully charge your battery. Unfortunately it doesn't work like that
since you can't put much more than 6 amps into the battery for long
without it getting hot and gassing. As the charge in the battery rises
the charge rate falls and it takes something like 5 hours to fully
charge.

I would suggest you run the car for 20 minutes every day to keep the
battery topped up and then you shouldn't be draining the battery much
so you will be able to start the engine and avoid damaging the battery.

I would likely run it much more often, and longer than that. And there is no
need to run the air pump continuously anyway. I would likely run it only for a
few hours in the day, and then run it for a much longer period at night, since
the O2 demand is greater at night. I have a telescope with an electronic clock
drive (equitorial). It runs on 115 volts, about 5 watts. I used it the other
night, connecting it to the new inverter through the cigarette lighter on my
car. I was able to use it most of the night without it discharging my battery
to the point where the car wouldn't start.

Also if the battery is over three years old there is a good chance it's
worn out and even the low current for the pump will flatten it
overnight but if this was the case you'd probably find it hard to start
if it had been left for a couple of days. That's based on average use
and no one is really average :-)

New battery. Having said that, you are correct, since hopefully, we won't have
another outage like that one for a long time. But you never know.

--
Regards - Rodney Pont
The from address exists but is mostly dumped,
please send any emails to the address below
e-mail ngpsm4 (at) infohitsystems (dot) ltd (dot) uk

bluegill phil wrote in message
...
Its been posted here that you can use hydrogen peroxide @1cup per 100
gallons to add oxygen, is that true. Has anyone really done this?


I've use it to bioremediate contaminated ground water, but I've never even
considered using it in an aquarium or a pond. I would think that it would be
toxic to the fish, but I don't know for sure since I've not had any experience
using it for that purpose.



On Fri, 16 Jul 2004 16:24:25 -0400, " George"
wrote:


"Crashj" wrote in message
.com...
" George" wrote in message
t...
"Crashj" wrote in message
om...
" George" wrote in message
.. .
Hi guys and gals. Well, the power went off here two days ago during a
ferocius storm which knocked out power to 100,000 homes and businesses
in the Louisville area. My power just came on just a while ago today.
I was beginning to have real concerns about my fish.

Small generators capable of 3000 watts can be had for less that $400.
You will need a lot of gasoline, of course.

Yes, I am aware of this. Try running one in the middle of the night in a
suburban neighborhood and see how long it takes before someone gets
violent over the noise.

So what happens to your fish when the Rapture comes??

I don't have a problem with raptors?

Snork! [laughter]

Just kidding.

If noise is a concern go for the Honda portables which are demand
regulated. You cannot hear them at all from more than a few feet away.
--
Crashj

I bought a power inverter instead. 140 watts output, from radio shack. It
should let me run the water pump instead of just the air pump. My pump is 124
watts 1/6 hp.

I have used peroxide, as has my BIL and at least one other member of our
pond club. I first saw it on Doc Johnson's site. It works well and allows
the fish to get their heads back under water in just minutes. At high
rates, I think it could burn the fish, but at the posted dosage it works for
a few hours, and then has to be redone.
--
RichToyBox
http://www.geocities.com/richtoybox/pondintro.html
bluegill phil wrote in message
...
Its been posted here that you can use hydrogen peroxide @1cup per 100
gallons to add oxygen, is that true. Has anyone really done this?




On Fri, 16 Jul 2004 16:24:25 -0400, " George"
wrote:


"Crashj" wrote in message
. com...
" George" wrote in message
...
"Crashj" wrote in message
om...
" George" wrote in message
.. .
Hi guys and gals. Well, the power went off here two days ago
during a
ferocius storm which knocked out power to 100,000 homes and
businesses
in the Louisville area. My power just came on just a while ago
today.
I was beginning to have real concerns about my fish.

Small generators capable of 3000 watts can be had for less that
$400.
You will need a lot of gasoline, of course.

Yes, I am aware of this. Try running one in the middle of the night
in a
suburban neighborhood and see how long it takes before someone gets
violent over the noise.

So what happens to your fish when the Rapture comes??

I don't have a problem with raptors?

Snork! [laughter]

Just kidding.

If noise is a concern go for the Honda portables which are demand
regulated. You cannot hear them at all from more than a few feet away.
--
Crashj

I bought a power inverter instead. 140 watts output, from radio shack.
It
should let me run the water pump instead of just the air pump. My pump
is 124
watts 1/6 hp.

"RichToyBox" wrote in message
news:PZiLc.131180$%_6.88682@attbi_s01...
I have used peroxide, as has my BIL and at least one other member of our
pond club. I first saw it on Doc Johnson's site. It works well and allows
the fish to get their heads back under water in just minutes. At high
rates, I think it could burn the fish, but at the posted dosage it works for
a few hours, and then has to be redone.
--
RichToyBox

What was the concentration of the solution (not the dosage)?

http://www.geocities.com/richtoybox/pondintro.html
bluegill phil wrote in message
...
Its been posted here that you can use hydrogen peroxide @1cup per 100
gallons to add oxygen, is that true. Has anyone really done this?




On Fri, 16 Jul 2004 16:24:25 -0400, " George"
wrote:


"Crashj" wrote in message
. com...
" George" wrote in message
...
"Crashj" wrote in message
om...
" George" wrote in message
.. .
Hi guys and gals. Well, the power went off here two days ago
during a
ferocius storm which knocked out power to 100,000 homes and
businesses
in the Louisville area. My power just came on just a while ago
today.
I was beginning to have real concerns about my fish.

Small generators capable of 3000 watts can be had for less that
$400.
You will need a lot of gasoline, of course.

Yes, I am aware of this. Try running one in the middle of the night
in a
suburban neighborhood and see how long it takes before someone gets
violent over the noise.

So what happens to your fish when the Rapture comes??

I don't have a problem with raptors?

Snork! [laughter]

Just kidding.

If noise is a concern go for the Honda portables which are demand
regulated. You cannot hear them at all from more than a few feet away.
--
Crashj

I bought a power inverter instead. 140 watts output, from radio shack.
It
should let me run the water pump instead of just the air pump. My pump
is 124
watts 1/6 hp.

Hi Jan

In Canada we have a store called Canadian Tire. They carry a wide range of
power options from the small power inverter you speaks of to higher models
costing about $300 Cdn that have more power. Great inventions.

In the winter I use my power inverter to run a heating pad in the van. It
heats warmer and faster than a seat warmer!

Since we live in the country putting a UPS on my pond pump is a good idea.
I think we can buy smallish ones for $100 or so in Costco. Just have to
figure out how to protect if from the elements. Ideas anyone?

Heather


"~ jan JJsPond.us" wrote in message
...
Jan tried something interesting,
kathy :-)

George, I really feel for you, but I think if I lived anywhere around or
especially east of the Mississippi, we'd have a generator. As is, as K30
menitoned, last winter we did have a power outage of 6.5 hours at negative
19 (I think it was -10 in my micro-climate). Luckily my set up in winter
self drains and we had snow cover, so the ponds were insulated and I had
no
problems.

Now yesterday's power outage was more scary, with temps hitting that 100+
mark. After the outage of winter, DH purchased a simple 2 plug-in inverter
to run off a car's battery. Cost around $20. When he bought it I thought
it
was silly and a car's battery wouldn't last that long. Well was I
surprised.

Son, who just couldn't wait to try out this new toy, got it hooked up and
extension cord out to the pond within minutes. The 2nd plug-in he ran
extension cords to my aquariums rotating between them to keep the filters
aerated. Due to most of the fish being outside, he just wanted to keep the
filters refreshed, since cleaning them is his chore. ;o)

Like you, he ran his tropical tanks off his computer's UPS.

With the inverter the van's battery ran the pond for 90 minutes before the
inverter signaled that the battery was getting low. Per the directions we
started up the van and let it idle for 10-15 minutes, with the inverter
connected. We then turned off the van, and the battery lasted another hour
before the signal went off again, just as our power came back on.

That $20 invested really made a big difference in my life, my only worry
was the frozen foods, any idea how long an opened freezer will keep things
frozen?

The other big difference is that when the power is off more than 20
minutes
in that kind of heat, depending on your filter, you either have to flush
it
or clean it. So I would have had to be out in the dark putting a pump in
the pump chamber and running it for 30 minutes on the lawn, restarting the
filter, adding water/dechlor. and putting everything away, etc.. Instead,
I
was able to get on my computer as soon as power came on. ;o) ~ jan


See my ponds and filter design:
http://users.owt.com/jjspond/

~Keep 'em Wet!~
Tri-Cities WA Zone 7a
To e-mail see website

Heather wrote Just have to
figure out how to protect if from the elements. Ideas anyone?

We mounted an air pump on a post and upended a galvanized tub over it. Topped
the tub with a birdhouse. Doesn't look all that bad...


kathy :-)
algae primer
http://hometown.aol.com/ka30p/myhomepage/garden.html