- Hi, today's problem,
the power just went out or certainly will.
What do I do?
- Well we have the five solutions if your power's out now
and five preventions to make this not a problem.
(upbeat music)
- This is BRS TV Problem Solvers.
If reliance on a continuous stream of power is your problem,
and it's everyone's problem,
well this video is the solution, starting with number one.
- [Randy] Step number 1 is embrace the inevitable.
The power will go out.
And it's not just, you know, power in your local area.
You gotta think about that,
but what happens when it's localized?
So maybe the power goes out,
maybe you're neighborhood tree falls on the wires,
knocks the power out.
But what if it happens in your own house
like a breaker box,
a breaker switch flips in the middle of the night,
or you got a short in your wire,
or even one of your power strips or power bars fails,
GFCI outlet flips inside your house,
or the plug just came loose on the piece of equipment.
Power outage can happen from globally to locally,
and you have to be prepared for any of those.
- [Ryan] If I think about it in those types of terms,
the chances that my tank is going to experience,
or any piece of equipment on there
experience a power outages, is a near certainty.
So, embrace the inevitable,
and you'll be more successful.
Number 2 is there's multiple solutions out there
for power monitoring
to let you know that this is actually happening.
- Oh yes.
- So, most people know that with the Apex,
there's like a heartbeat.
So if you have an advanced controller,
it's sending little beats out.
Can I connect, can I connect?
And if it can't,
it'll start sending you alarms to your phone saying,
"Come save your tank, it's out of power".
Why is that important?
Well, most of the time you're not home.
Most of the time, 8 hours a day, you're at work, right?
Probably 10 hours of travel.
- Yep.
- Another 8 hours a day, I'm sleeping.
So just a couple hours in the morning
and a couple hours in the evening,
might actually around even know the power went out.
- well, there's,
there's another part of the Apex that helps you too
because not always will your head unit go out.
Maybe you have your energy bar plugged into a GFCI.
And that GFCI goes out,
but your head unit
and the rest of the apex is still running.
So you, it's not telling you that the power is out
because all of your home power is out,
but that one energy bar is out.
Meaning if you have power notifications
or power usage alarms on some of your equipment set up,
you'll know if one outlet in the energy bar,
the energy bar itself also goes out
when the rest of the power is still in the house.
- [Ryan] That goes all the way down to
if the one outlet like, would've like been...
- [Randy] The loose plug that we talked about.
- [Ryan] Yeah, you'll know.
You'll get an alarm.
This thing should be taking that power and isn't.
But beyond that,
there's options like the CCHE return pumps.
- Smart
- [Ryan] The smart type of pumps
and equipment now for reefing,
not only tells you that it's failed
and is hooked up to your wifi
but it'll tell you it can't connect.
Meaning likely the power's out, because the routers out.
So there's lots of options now to let you know.
But the most important thing to know is
I won't be home,
I'll probably be sleeping, maybe on vacation.
The chances that I'll know
when the power went out in real time are near zero.
So notifications, the most important part.
- [Randy] Number 3,
whether spent thousands or hundreds of dollars on your tank,
your battery backup or your power outage solutions
should match your investment in the tank,
meaning I'm either gonna buy several thousands dollars
worth of generator or maybe a little $20 airstone
will go cover it for me.
We're gonna cover those 4 solutions in just a bit
but,
having one on your tank to protect your investment
that you put in do the tank
is going to be the path to success.
- [Ryan] The important part actually is to go get it now.
So whatever that option is, go pick it up now
because it won't be there when you need it.
So pick that investment and make it now,
it will protect the tank.
Number 4,
think about what goes into a power solution
for your specific location,
meaning, what does winter and summer look like?
Because you may actually need to run
an air conditioner furnace to actually save the tank.
And how long does the power out usually happen?
Are you in a metropolitan area,
where it's usually only 10 hours?
Are you in an area that has constant brownouts?
And it might actually be three days while the power's out
and it happens 3 times a year.
Well, the solutions are different for you.
So adjust the solution to match the environment
and the frequency at which this happens.
- [Randy] Number 5,
might be the most important one you hear today,
and that is every tank should have some sort of
power head that has battery backup capabilities on it
because this is the solve for 70 to 80%
of the power outages out there,
which is the gas exchange.
- Meaning if you have a power that you've already bought
that has a battery backup option,
absolutely go get it.
Because that thing will turn on the moment that you need it.
You don't have to be around.
Doesn't matter if you're sleeping.
Doesn't matter if you're working.
If you have an AC solution
or you happen to bought a solution
that doesn't have a battery backup.
You got 2 options,
one, you can go out and get another power head
that has an option like that.
You can also get these, you know, computer battery backups
but to get one that lasts even as much as 10 hours
you're into a few hundred dollars, right?
And the more typical ones
and that 100 to 150 range will really only last
4 to 6 hours in most cases.
And that's brand new,
meaning a couple years from now it's probably half that.
So the DC options,
that don't have to convert AC to DC,
to AC back and forth.
The DC options here are gonna last way longer.
In fact, this one we tested to run up to
80 hours on an MP 10.
So it's just way, way more efficient.
And even years down the road,
probably way more than most people will need.
All right that queues up number 6.
There are priorities in terms of
what you should actually care about during a power outage.
And the reason we said that power head thing is
because the most important above all else
by a magnitude of like 10X is gas exchange,
meaning we're getting the oxygen in,
we're getting the CO2 out
because once that gas exchange stops
all of a sudden everything starts dying.
And it isn't like, you know
all of a sudden we just have a long time.
Once one thing goes, it all goes and the tank just crashes.
So it's gas exchange, the number one most important thing,
everything else at this is second,
but what's number two?
- [Randy] Yeah number 2 is,
you hear a lot of questions about
well, shoot, what about my heaters?
You know, what about heating and cooling the tank?
This is one of those
that you can actually last a longer time.
So your tank is going to be fine.
(indistinct) is a gradual fall to let 78 to 70,
to 70 degrees.
Heating on the other end.
Yoke, you can solve this with some ice out of the freezer,
what have you, you know, to help cool it down,
but temperature, you know,
if you're trying to solve it with a battery backup heater,
think about the wattage draw that that heater pulls
versus, the 300 Watts
versus the 10 Watts of your power head.
This is lower on the totem pole.
- Yeah. The nature of it is
a. Even if you cared about out it, it's much harder to solve
because the energy to run a chiller or heater
is really high.
- Oh yeah.
- b. Your tank can actually survive being cold
for quite a while.
Like by cold, I mean, into the lower seventies
you can often, like go days,
if even weeks, in some cases in those lower degrees,
without wiping out the tank.
So it is not as important.
Heat on the other hand is going to become a problem
because you're 110 degrees in your area.
And now, if your system is out
you're probably your air conditioner
and furnace is out as well.
So those are solutions that are,
can only really be solved through a generator
or something like it.
So if you know that you have that problem
generator maybe a better solution for heating,
but there's also,
what some people will back up is filtration.
- Yeah. So gas exchange, temperature,
next in the priority list is filtration.
Basically, this is just your return pump.
Powering your return pump to get your water filtered
through your skim or through your refugium,
and you know in this case, with the,
if you only were concerned about filtering the water,
I mean, if you were thinking about your skimmer,
you'd have to power the skimmer as well.
If you're thinking about the refugium,
you also have to power the refugium light,
and this one is just mechanical filtration at that point.
Are you backing up your tank just to run your water
through the filter sock?
which case pretty, pretty low on the totem pole.
And there are some DC pop...
There are some DC return pump options out there
that do have battery backup options.
They can run at like 50% of the intensity,
but again if you have a power head in your tank
causing the gas exchange,
running your filtration,
not much of a priority.
- You know, if you got an unlimited budget,
you know the vectra from Ecotech will
plug into their battery backup solution
and it'll even, can intelligently can set it up
to run in a lower wattages to consume less power
but really a distant third, to the other ones.
And right up there with lighting.
Lighting, you know
there's storms on a natural reef all the time
and really low light for maybe even
as much as a week or two.
- Yeah.
- So, lighting really not an issue
unless you have a really prolonged outage.
And I wouldn't consider that,
again, unless, I mean you got an unlimited budget
or huge, huge, huge investment in the tank,
generator is this solution for lighting
when you want the whole thing to run
when it goes down, that's it.
- Number 7, we're moving on to the four solutions.
And in the order that we would implement them,
starting with the battery backup,
being the number one solution.
There's so many options out there
for pumps these days that have an option for battery backup
more and more continually getting made by manufacturers.
These are the DC options.
The ones that can run 80 some hours
because it's running on a DC to DC battery backup,
this solves 90% of outage.
It'll get you through 90% of your outages, which can last
you know, anywhere from a few hours to maybe 24, 48 hours.
- Again, I'll go all the way to,
every single tank out there should have one power head,
one battery backup solution, at least.
And the reason for that again is
because it turns on automatically when the power goes out,
doesn't matter, I could be sleeping.
it could be midnight,
I'm already asleep.
Power goes out.
Doesn't matter.
I could be at, it could be at 9:30 AM power went out
while I'm at work, it doesn't matter, already kicked on.
I don't really even need to worry about it.
I don't need to rush home and go solve that problem
or worry about what's gonna win the powers
when it come back on
because I know my tank is being taken care of.
It's a fairly affordable option to protect the tank
works without human interaction and the best solution.
That's why it's number one.
Number 8, right after that,
because it's cheap and it's easy.
It's an inverter.
Meaning those things that you just pinch
on the battery of your car,
will send out 300 Watts of power in many cases.
And you can run a couple things off of your tank
by just leaving your car running.
- Yeah. This one is...
And second on the totem pole, because it is easy,
it is cheap, but second to a battery backup
because I have to be there.
I have to be there when the power goes out,
to run my car, to plug it in,
to run the cord into my house and plug in my tank,
but better option in a pinch.
And one of the, you know, like we said,
one of the cheaper, more savior, cost effective options.
You know, if you consider what we said earlier
and the investment in your tank,
is this enough to protect your investment.
- In fact, next time that you're at home depot,
next time you're at Walmart or batteries plus
or anywhere they all sell inverters.
While you're there just pick one up now,
because that is the solution to so many things.
It's so easy.
The big drawback again, is the fact that doesn't turn on.
Otherwise I'd probably make this number one.
It just doesn't turn on.
You have to be there, run all those cords
and make it happen, but really inexpensive.
If you're not gonna do anything at all,
pick one of these things up
while you're at one of those stores.
- [Randy] Number 9 solution is the battery air pump,
the battery powered air pump.
There are some that are designed to kick on
when you're not there.
And there's some that you just hang on the side
of the tank when you are there.
And the power goes out.
This just, you know, third and probably the bottom
of the totem pole for the options here in that,
it's not like an air...
It's not like a water pump or power head
where you're actually circulating the body of water
and moving the CO2 out.
And the oxygen in, is very localized.
It's right around the actual air bubbles themselves.
And you're not really mixing or turning the water.
It is deceiving cause it feels like, you know
oxygen's getting in there cause look at all these bubbles.
But again, not the best solution,
one of the cheaper options
but not the best or number one solution.
- [Ryan] The power head turning over that whole surface
of the water mixing it just a way, way, way better option.
Also, the options that are automatic
being plugged into the wall,
but recognizes when the power goes out
and then has batteries in there
and sends it to, to turn on.
Well, it sounds really good,
but there's two downfalls there.
One, that means I always have to have this hose
and airstone dangling in my tank, which nobody wants.
And two, that airstone actually needs to be maintenanced
meaning that if it gets all clogged up with biofilm
because it has been to a year since you had a power outage.
It may not work when you need it.
So while these used to be one of the most
popular options out there
cause they do look like they're eye rating the water.
It would be a third in the list of things I would do.
All right, number 10, generators.
This is the best option.
If you determine you want the biggest insurance policy
on your tank.
Go out and pick up one of these things,
will probably run your entire tank.
So also a great option if you know that you have
frequent prolonged power outages.
There are some downsides though, to generators.
1. If there's a big storm, you will never find one.
- Yeah.
- Everyone else will have already bought it before you,
you'll be driving three states to get it.
So you're gonna have to get it now.
You could probably get one that the runs entire tank
for as little as 5 to 600 bucks.
That you know the essence of the tank,
a really small one, for probably 300 bucks.
But the downside to one of these things is
a. They need to actually work when you need it.
And you need to maintain it.
You can't leave old gas in it
and gum up the carburetor in it.
- Start it every year, two times a year.
- Change the oil.
Yeah, cause the reality is is you probably
won't use it that often.
It may not work when you need it.
- Yeah. This is another one of those things that, you know
there's different options of generators.
You can get the whole home generator like
it'll start itself and you know, it'll give you metrics
and you know oil capacity,
all this other really fancy stuff,
powers your whole entire home.
The other end is, you know,
these propane or or gas generators that again,
you physically have to be there,
when the power goes out to fire them up and run them,
there may be some smart options
that might be plugged into an outlet and recognize it,
most of the time that's the whole home one.
But again, you know, choose your investment
and how much you have put in your tank
to choose the right generator option.
- [Ryan] The ones that you talked about,
the whole home ones those run on natural gas,
just for reference.
They will, they'll turn on
the moment the electricity goes out.
You'll never even know it, man.
That means that you can still watch TV
and you can still have a reef tank at the same time.
(Randy laughs)
You still have your furnaces still running.
You know, your home's not cold, or it's not hot.
There's a lot of different benefits
that you might be able to get that past the household.
But note that, an inexpensive one of those whole home,
automatic, runs on natural gas,
often somewhere between 5 grand and 10 grand installed.
So now not the cheapest solution
but definitely that's the end game.
And then there's two questions we didn't answer today,
which is, how do I make it safer
and get rid of all those user errors to trigger the GFCI
and everything else?
That's right here.
- The second question we didn't answer is,
just how long does this battery,
$120 battery back back up last?
See in my investigates right here.