Whew!!! Close call.

"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

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

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 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

Hey George, You don't live too far from me! I am up-river from you
about 50 miles, on the IN side.

"GrannyGrump" wrote in message
...

Hey George, You don't live too far from me! I am up-river from you
about 50 miles, on the IN side.

Did your power go out? I hope everything turned out ok for you. Wow, I've seen
some bad storms (even the 1974 tornados), but that was certainly one of the tops
on my list. Let me guess. Madison? No, that is perhaps too close. Veyvay?

Did your power go out? I hope everything turned out ok for you. Wow, I've seen
some bad storms (even the 1974 tornados), but that was certainly one of the tops
on my list. Let me guess. Madison? No, that is perhaps too close. Veyvay?

It flashed out but was right back on... we didn't get those winds, but
my Mom on the west side of the county did....

Just a few miles NE of Madison

Want some goldfish? I am cleaning out my goldfish pond and giving away
all the small and medium sized ones.

"GrannyGrump" wrote in message
...

Did your power go out? I hope everything turned out ok for you. Wow, I've
seen
some bad storms (even the 1974 tornados), but that was certainly one of the
tops
on my list. Let me guess. Madison? No, that is perhaps too close. Veyvay?

It flashed out but was right back on... we didn't get those winds, but
my Mom on the west side of the county did....

Just a few miles NE of Madison

We had 80 mph winds in my part of the county. They were quite ferocious. Power
was out until yesterday morning.

Want some goldfish? I am cleaning out my goldfish pond and giving away
all the small and medium sized ones.

Funny you should ask this, because I was just out feeding my fish this A.M,
thinking it was time to cull the herd, so to speak. There is a pond dealer near
me,and I was thinking about seeing if he would trade about a 7 juveniles (5-6
inches), and about 6 fingerlings (about 1 1/2-2 inches) for a nice butterfly
koi. I had three others last year. One became catfish food when he
inadvertently tried to take the same morsel my catfish had his eye on. A second
one disappeared this winter, (I think to the cold). So I have one left, but he
is a real beauty. I want to keep my large female goldfish (about 10 inches),
and my largest, prettiest male (about 6 inches - long finned white tail). I
also have one solid white fingerling, one solid black that may or may not change
(the others already have, but this one hasn't, and he's no runt either - he's
actually the biggest fingerling of the bunch, and may turn out to be a female).
Then I have one fingerling that is orange and white. The rest are orange. I
want to keep the white one, and the orange and white, but get rid of the others.
My koi are starting to get big, so I want to make more room for them.

Hey George, You don't live too far from me! I am up-river from you
about 50 miles, on the IN side.

" 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.
I have a 1973 GMC motorhome with a 6000 watt generator that burns 1
gallon/hour at full output. The motorhome tanks hold 50 gallons. That
might get me through a week. I would also have to run the fridge or
use the one in the coach.
The Canadian aquarium keepers lost many fish during the big power
outage years ago. The ice load took out major sections of transmission
line and it took some of them months to get back on line.
So what happens to your fish when the Rapture comes??
--
Crashj