Recharging the Emergency Power System

Use Your Car to Recharge
Here is how you can keep this system running indefinitely with no wall power. The Odyssey battery is really a super car battery. If you purchased two you could have one powering your tanks and keep the other, you guessed it, under your car hood! With one functioning as your car battery it will always be full. When the power in your home goes out and you've used the power in your emergency battery just swap it with the battery under your hood.

Since the battery you are putting under your hood will be dead once you swap it, you will need a jump start to get your car started, and then run it to recharge the battery. You could do this forever and always have a battery full to run your tanks. I know this is a lot of work, but hey you only have to do it in times of extreme weather/power outages. No one said this was supposed to be fun; it’s about keeping your fish alive.

Use Solar Power to Recharge
Another option is to the power of the sun. Solar power panels are very inexpensive now. You can purchase a “briefcase” that opens into two solar panels. You can then use this to keep your Odyssey battery fully charged. This Solar Panel is one example of a solar power briefcase. If you search on eBay you will find many such panels at great prices.

While these could power your fish tank pumps by them selves, they will only work while the sun is out. It’s best to use them to keep your battery charged so you can keep the pumps running at night as well. Note - I have never used the solar power method explained here, I just provide it as a suggestion. I highly recommend you do a little homework on this and search for the best solution for you.

My Experience With Katrina
After hurricane Katrina hit my power was off four 3-4 days. I didn't even have to do a water change when the power came back on my 26 gallon since the Aquaclear 50 on their tank never stopped running. Silly that I have to mention this, but do not plug in your lights unless you have a reef system that needs it. Lights will drain your battery much faster than your pumps will.

If you have everything planned out properly you could even use this system to power your cell phone charger, run a small fan, etc Any of the really low power things you have that need electricity.
Best of luck to my fellow fish keepers~!
Adam Goldstein
CreditFreePC.com