Chalk one up to being prepared... battery backup

[Nienna]

So last Thursday we got a notice in our mail slot that Hydro Ottawa was going to be turning the power off on the 16th (today) for a period of 6 hours.  Needless to say that neither of us were available to stay home during this period and that they clocked in at more than 9 hours...

The key message that I want to get out is that you should at least have your key emergency equipment on hand even if you don't have it hooked up.

What this meant for our 250g saltwater DT was that we had our sealed battery (24V) on hand, in the proper case, with the trickle charger hooked up so it was fully charged with a 12h capacity.

We also had a Cobalt neo-flow 10,000 which was relatively easy to set up (below the power-out water line) so that it disturbed the water's surface to ensure oxygen / CO2 exchange.

Connecting these together was a Tunze Stream Safety Connector which ensured that the neo-flow switched to being battery powered once the AC went out.  Note that this connector, while providing the cables to hook up to the power head did NOT provide the wires and connectors for the other side to hook up to the battery, necessitating a trip to Home Depot for wires, endings and advice as to how to hook it all up.

End result - everything worked as it should have (as tested), tank looks fine, battery automatically switched to charging and the LED needs to have its timer reset.  That's a shortfall I'm more than willing to deal with.