Power Outage
When I came home last night, there was a notice posted on the front door that there would be a planned power outage of the building on 9/13 starting at 9am until 3pm. I don’t think I’ve ever had to deal with something like this before.
I’ve had to deal with one blackout that I can remember, and I deal with planned power outages at work once in a while, but we have a procedure we follow for those. This is the first one that I can remember that is 1) planned, and 2) at my place of dwelling.
The only thing I’m really worried about is the outage’s affect on my aquarium. I will unplug the filter prior to 9am. This should be done because some of the water in the filter will fall back into the tank. The problem with this is that when the filter gets power again, and the impeller starts spinning, if there is no water in the reservoir, the motor may burn out. I will also need to take the filter’s media and put that in the tank so that the bacteria in there won’t dry out and die. I will need to do a small water change once I get home as well.
I’m sure that an eight or nine hour outage won’t harm the fish too badly, but I’m going to try to make the ordeal as comfortable for them as possible.
Power outages are pretty common where I live, so I have my computer hooked up to a little UPS system I got for $60. It’s supposed to run my computer for 20 minutes if the power goes out. I imagine a little device like a filter would run for several hours. That might be something to consider if this becomes a habit.
