Fish Tank At Work

[smmetz]

Hey, I was toying with the idea of setting up my 10 gallon tank at work. I would get an automatic feeder and a timer for the light, so they would be OK on weekends or my vacation. The problems is that every year they shut off power for the whole building for the July 4rth weekend.

So, do you think I should just not bother setting it up at work? It would be a pain to lug it home, although for a 10 gallon, only 1/year, maybe it would not be to bad.

What if I took the fish out and left the tank? Would the tank be "un-cycled" when I came back after 4 days of no power? What if I took the filter media home also(and put it in another tank with the fish, temporarily), would that work?

Any advise on an easy way to get around this planned power outage, or would you advise I just keep the tank at home?

 

[Chri$]

Well it would be easier just to keep the tank at home, you could take the filter home in a bucket of water out of the tank and then get it running again at the weekend and do the same again when taking it back.So it could work, it's only one weekend.
I would just keep the tank at home as i am a bit lazy.

 

[Torrean]

Maybe a yacht battery. Or solar panels. Let's see what else could you do. A generator isn't really feasible. Is it a heated tank. If not you could get a really powerfull battery powered airstone and put that in your filter. Just make sure that it'll run for 4 days straight on one battery.

 

[Durbkat]

They make power strips that have a battery back up if the power goes off so get one of these and it will kick on the battery back up once they shut the power off. Or you could get a few hundred 100 feet extension cords and run it to your house.


















LOL

 

[Phillip.M]

If i was in yur shoes i would just take the tank home for the weekend; who cares it's just one time in a year; just make sure you take the water out;the fish;etc;etc If you dont know how; i think there's other topics; but not sure.

 

[MasterP]

just take the filter and the fish home for a weekend. after the weekend use one day to get the filter and heater back on then the next day you could bring the fish back! ( if you can put them in a tank at home)

 

[Phillip.M]

just take the filter and the fish home for a weekend. after the weekend use one day to get the filter and heater back on then the next day you could bring the fish back! ( if you can put them in a tank at home)

That isnt a good idea.. The water could have an ammonia spike or PH.. I wouldn't advise on doing it.

 

[SkydiveSonic]

I recently had a power cut and used my UPS for my pc to power the filters during that time. If the UPS can power 200 watts plus for an hour, it shouldn't have problems powering a 5 or 6 watt filter for a while ... I managed to pick it up for 30 bucks (canadian). It'll also give you surge protection and battery back up for those "unscheduled" cuts.

 

[smmetz]

Hmm, I'll have to check out how many watts a my filter takes up. Worst case, I just use the battery on the filter and automatic feeder, and leave off the lights for the whole time. I should be able to calculate how long it will run once I find the wattage it takes.

edit: just figured it out - even with a high end UPS device, there is just about no way to get a filter to run for more than a day