I use a generator for long term outages. I always start off with the ac
converter, but if it's going to mean leaving the car running, I'll switch to
generator. I have one of the crappy little camping generators that are
$300. I hate it, I have to fill it every 3 hours with more gas because the
tank is too small, but so it goes. That's what I had to purchase in my
emergency when I and 300 gallons of marine reef life was going to go out the
window all-in-once (the wife woulda thrown me with it if that thing
crashed).
In my current case where the fish don't cost $70 a pop, I look-in-the cost
justification as the amount of gas I spent to get to the animals
(environmental costs too!), the amount of electricity I spent to maintain
the animals to that point (environmental costs!), and the amount of food
costs, etc (I'll actually let my time be free on this one ;)... And it
becomes really easy to part with $500 as part of the plan to preserve the
thousands that probably went into those animals arriving-in-my door.
And I'm not keeping imperilled animals, nor are they for any sort of formal
research.
I think if your lab is handling T&E species, there should also be a ethical
requirement for the lab to purchase a $500 generator for the lab's use, and
have a plan to implement the generator in the case of a power failure. In
fact, I think it should be a REQUIREMENT on the permit, but that's just me.
Todd
The Muddy Maumee Madness, Toledo, OH
It's never too late to have a happy childhood.
http://www.farmertodd.com
----- Original Message -----
From: "Dave Neely" <rheopresbe-in-hotmail.com>
To: <nanfa-l-in-nanfa.org>
Sent: Sunday, July 23, 2006 7:16 PM
Subject: NANFA-L-- backup systems for aquaria
> Hey all,
>
> ...so the past several days have been interesting. The storms that came
> through last week knocked out power to my house on Thusday, and it's still
> down. I have a 6V-powered mino-mizer running on the tank with "critical"
> fish (stuff that would be near-impossible to replace, like a couple
> undescribed things) and they're still OK, but I've had heavy losses in the
> others. I've been getting about 16-18h out of each battery. I guess I need
> to make sure I have a better supply of aerators and batteries on hand in
the
> future. At least the temperature has dropped a bit. Still, I've been
> debating pulling everything out of tanks and getting them into coolers
with
> a couple inches of water, which might keep O2 concentrations higher, or
even
> renting an O2 cylinder from Airgas...
>
> Anyway, my minor problems aside, what does everyone else do for backup in
> case this kind of thing happens? While I'd like to have a 5000W generator
> around (which could also power an electrofishing boat quite nicely -
> hmmm...), I can't justify the expense right now. This of course begs the
> question of what kind of systems a facility handling T&E species would
have
> to have in place? Pat? J.R.?
>
> Any suggestions?
>
> Cheers,
> Dave
> --
> along the mighty Mississippi,
> St. Louis, MO
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
> --
> David A. Neely
> Dept. of Biology
> St. Louis University
> St. Louis, MO 63103 USA
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/ visit http://www.nanfa.org Please make sure all posts to nanfa-l are
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