Stupidly Over-sensitive Trip Switches.

[PlecMama]

Dan switched a table lamp on today and the bulb blew. No biggie. I went into the kitchen to put the shopping away and my little boy asked if he could go play outside, so I looked at the heating timer clock on the wall to see if it was too late for him to go out and wtf?? the clock is blank. I looked at the cooker, the cooker clock is off too.

The bulb blowing in a table lamp caused the main trip switch for the entire ringmain for sockets in my house to trip!! All the tanks were off, no power, thus: no filters, no heaters, no lights, no bubbles, no nothing.

Now. If you are going away on holiday, it might be a good idea to warn any fish-sitters to check everything is ok if they have some silly and minor bulb popping incident. We'd never thought of it before.

We had all the fuse box replaced 2 years ago when we bought the house and we got up-to-the-minute trip switches put on, so if my boy sticks anything in a plug socket, the power is gone before he is, and I am glad we did, but that just seems like an over reaction for a light bulb. I know the light ring shuts down everytime a bulb in a ceiling light burns out - which is annoying, and sucks if it was dark and you have to go downstairs in the dark then to flip the trip back on - but every plug socket in the house for a table lamp bulb? please.

 

[csr mel]

anyone with a fishtank they care even slightly about should be running a battery backup system. its not expensive at all.

whats with the light rings? are youre lights wired up in series or some crazy thing?

 

[PlecMama]

So, to clarify - those of us running tanks who apparently don't care even slightly about said tanks, please stop reading posts now and also quit reading fish forums, or heeding any advice or warning any future fish-sitters, because clearly we don't much mind if they die anyway. Thanks for putting me straight on that csr mel.

 

[trace1]

what can you imagine how much that would cost in batteries
i thought there was only our house that if 1 bulb went in the ceiling it trips the switch for all the ceiling lights.
i do care about my tanks & my fish but i don't have a battery back up if the electric goes but does anyone ?

 

[K.J.]

Reminds me of when I was sitting at my desk, turned on the tv and it blew, I figured it was a power outage ("oh crap, my bubbler is still on!!) and looked about, but it was the plugin extension had been unplugged. Which explained why the lamp that was not attached to that plugin extension stayed on. And, fortunately, my bubbler was already off and my eight bettas weren't sucked into oblivion by the 5 seconds of power outage. But it is traumatic when you think the plugin socket blew and you were using 100% of it.

 

[csr mel]

battery backup has built in batteries, theres nothing additional to buy.

heres one for £44.99. i have a similar one and it runs my tank for about 20 hours if the power fails.

http/www.apc.com/resource/include/techsp..._sku=BE325%2DUK

 

[Tolak]

battery backup has built in batteries, theres nothing additional to buy.

heres one for £44.99. i have a similar one and it runs my tank for about 20 hours if the power fails.

http/www.apc.com/resource/include/techsp..._sku=BE325%2DUK

That's a great price, think I'll run out & buy 16 for the 16 tanks I have running. May as well make it an even 20, that's what I'll have once I redo my fishroom in the next few months.

I think I'll stick with my $400 generator, seeing as the bacteria & temperature will be fine in the tanks for a few hours until I get home & hook it up. It runs half the house, which is nice in the winter. After 20 hours without power in the winter I would worry a lot more about frozen pipes than anything else.

If you really care about your fish you would get a generator csr mel. You'll wish you had if your power ever goes out for a couple of days.

 

[csr mel]

LoL, Tolak you crack me up. i dont know why you typed that reply to me, its obvious that i wasnt replying to you. my apc link was meant for SuzieQPlecMama to give this person an idea of the kind of backup they might want to look for.

i live in florida. although its paradise compared to chicago, we do have our problems, such as the occasional hurricane. ive had a generator for a few years now. it puts out 22,000 watts with a v twin motor. its wired to up power my entire house, hot water and central air and fishtank included. you dont need to tell me about generators bud.

 

[Crossfc]

For some odd reason my external filter still pumps and sucks water out without it being plugged in. Must be the siphoning action keeping the filter going. The heater is all together a different matter.

 

[PlecMama]

That's ok Tolak I'll just run out and spend the 200 pounds - which is roughly 400 dollars anyway - on a bunch of backups.

Maybe Mel could work on his tankside manner while I'm gone. csr mel, you were a member here before I was, how come you didn't learn to talk nicely to people yet?

Anyway, since we don't have hurricanes, or earth quakes, or fire storms or ice storms, or anything disasterous much here, I'll leave my little original note for the rare circumstances in which it might become relevant - when you may be away from your house for a few days and someone else comes in to look after your fish.

 

[LiveLifeGoJump]

Power cuts in Britain are now few and far between, so much so that to spend the time and money on equipment that will probably not be needed ever ( and if it were needed, sods law states it won't work). The last power cut we had was early 70s I think (so atleast 30 years ago). It is only quite recently that ups prices have come down to an affordable level (but still much higher in real terms than in the States).

As for the backups at £44.95. Half load (92.5w, 10.9 mins. - full load 185w, 2.9 mins) is fine if you are there & can deal with the problem (reset trip) but if you are at work the system would stop long before you could get home even if you found out imediatley & went straight home.

With a tank 3ft or over one of these is next to useless. The cost of a ups that would give 10 hours ( 8 hr shift plus upto 1 hr travelling each way in case it happened just as you left home) whould be a lot higher. Multiply by the number of tanks . Get a generator . Where do we put one. Remember, in the States your generator sheds are about the size of our 2 bedroom houses (slight exaggeration ).