calinb

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HatchetHaven

COBettaCouple

I think you could use a little more battery power.

susitna-flower

Looks good to me....better than a 18 yo boy!

Are you going to worry about feeding? I wouldn't if you are going to be gone less than a week.....

calinb

hehe--I actually have a fifth battery, but didn't hook it up. We have frequent power outages in Portland, OR (more frequent than any other place in the U.S. that I've lived). I haven't fully tested its capacity but, based on the small voltage drop of the battery pack over a couple of hours, it should run everything but lights for quite a few hours.

I don't know how many days my little Hengel's rasboras and chocolate gouramis should go without food (any suggestions?) but I set up the Penn-Plax "Daily Double" feeder anyway. It's a bit of a flimsy feeder but, with care, can be made to work reliably. I had to cover about 2/3 of the feeder "scoop" with heat shrink tubing because, at even the lowest setting, it would overfeed those little fish in that little tank.

Butterfly

They can go about a week without eating and not cause any harm They will be really glad to see you though LOL
carol

calinb

That's really good to know, Carol. For only a few days, I won't use an automated feeder next time. The risks associated with a failure that could result in overfeeding are probably high enough that it's better not to feed.

Thanks,

-Cal

Halibut

PGE? We havnt had but 3-5 outages that I know of since we moved up here 6 years ago.

Butterfly

Yep the risks of extra or uneaten food being in the tanks and causing an ammonia spike could be more harmful than a few hungry fish.
carol

calinb

We have at least 3-5 per year where we live (Linton on Forest Park side of St. Johns bridge). The combination of above ground power lines, a plethora of trees, and remnants of gorge effects make for frequent downed lines.

Halibut

I can see that, it is true we dont have that in Sherwood near as much, and the power is underground with the big green transformer boxes at various places. Gorge weather has be pretty bad for it to really have an effect on us.
Sorry if I hijacked the thread just wondered about the outages, I like the battery idea.

steveangela1

I was wondering what to do if we took vacation, or if something happend to one of us or the kids and they had to go in the hospital (i say that after having a 2 year old that had 15 hospital stays in 5 months luckily his health issues are all grown out of)
The only saving grace I could think of would be my mil that lives 2 houses down, then I would be scared of the days my cichlids were due for water tests and blood worms.... I guess they could go until we got home Or I would buy her some test strips (she honestly is a very intellegent woman but has no confidence in herself so she wouldn't dare try to use the api test kit, I have to test her water in her tank) the blood worms I know could wait a while the mbunas could stand a few days w/o them...
I guess its like my mom when she plans vacation and she has her fish and a lionhead bunny... the bunny will be staying w/ us and I guess I'll be going by her house to feed the fish

calinb

I've picked up a few of these computer uninterruptable power supplies for next to nothing (or even nothing ) after rebates. Susitna-flower has an APC 1500 Smart UPS. It's quite nice and I noticed it's on sale at Fry's electronics in Portland (Wilsonville) for a couple more days. I've been thinking of picking one up.

This little cheap one works fine for these small tanks, though. For larger heaters, I'd probably need something bigger, but the extra battery wires that I hacked into the case provide a reasonable capacity here. Sealed lead acid (SLA) batteries can be had fairly cheaply online. The four 18Ah 12V SLAs here were less than $150, including shipping.

I got the Penn-Plax Daily Double feeders for $15 each at my local PetSmart under their website price match policy. Turns out, I didn't really need them for the four days I'm out of town, but I guess I'll have them all checked out next time I'm gone for over a week. They have some limitations, but I found they could be made to work in my application. They hold a lot of food and must be filled at least to the 10-20% level to get consistent volumes dispensed. They also only work well with finely crushed flakes, but I found Aquadine to work, once it's crushed. They also seem to dispense the food over 10 to 30 minutes, sometimes; it doesn't all fall out at once. This can be bad if you have bully fish who eats it all, if it comes out slowly. I used a combination of sinking and floating flake food. The gouramis will then focus on the floating flakes while the rasboras get a chance at the sinking ones. Finally, the clamp on the feeder is rather limited, but I discovered clamping options, other than clamping it to top of the tank glass, as intended.