After keeping koi for a while and invested thousands on koi, ensuring continuous supply of oxygen to koi pond and aquarium water become extremely important. Otherwise, your investment may perish after a power breakdown that cut off the supply of electricity to compress air pump. Apart from occasional power breakdown due to TNB problem, there is always a possibility that the main circuit breaker may trip after a heavy thunder storm.
Running a 120 watt and a 40 watt Hi-Blow compressed air pump to supply compressed air the the main pond drain a lot of electricity. To cope with the possible power failure, my first investment was a backup system that is connected to two giant battery that we normal use for big lorry. During normal time, the backup unit will keep the battery charged and in the event of power failure, the power reserve in the battery unit will be used to power the 2 Hi-Blow that serve the koi pond.
We soon realize that such power backup system is only good enough if you will not be away from home for more than 2 days. Even if the backup system is used to power only the 40watt Hi-blow, it can barely last for one day. For longer period of absense, such backup system is no longer good enough for ensuring continuous supply of electricity.
Finally, we concluded that the best way to counter such problem is to rely on neighbour or friends who are willing to come to your home to turn on the power supply if the circuit breaker trip. Having to have friends of neighbour come to your house everyday is quite troublesome. We solve this installing a fax machine at home.Whenever we are away from home and wish to confirm that the power supply is alive, we will just call our fax number to see if the fax machine respond. In the event that the fax machine fail to respond, we will then call our friends or neighbour to check the power supply physically and turn it on if necessary. I have been replying on this simple, cheap and effective method to ensure that compressed air is alway available for our pond and aquarium water.
In the end of the day, the question is do we really need a power backup system ? My answer to this question is my do not need one at all. The reason being any power supply failure caused by TNB rarely last more than a few hours these days. In my absense, my koi are not fed at all and even without any oxygen supply, they should be able to survive by at least half a day.
October 14, 2005 Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia