Battery Backup?

[BigAl07]

Is anyone using any type of short term battery backup system? I know our systems aren't life critical without power for short periods of time but I have seen recent advances in battery backups with capacities going up and prices coming down. Just wondering if anyone is using this option. I am because this way all of my timers don't have to be reset in the event of a power outtage. I have one that's good for about 120 minutes during the morning & night and about 40 minutes with everything running "full-bore".

Allen

 

[saltwaterfarm]

I wish I did have something the other week when I lost power... I have seen the power supply things at the office stores but haven't gotten one yet. It's a great idea...

 

[BigAl07]

ME being in the PC industry I have them on all of my workstations in the office and thought, "Why not?". They've only come into play one time in the last 8 weeks (that I know of) but for those 6 minutes everything kept on ticking

Allen

 

[saltwaterfarm]

I was totally caught off-guard when I lost power. I was pumping air into my tanks (3 of them) with a hand held air pump. It was not fun! Had blankets wrapped all around them... A small battery b/u would have easily run powerheads and heaters...

 

[JFK_Jr]

Well it finally happened... an extended power outage. :look:

Living in a high rise condo on the beach always made me worry... what if? I have no way of running a gas generator, so my only alternative was to invest in an A.P.S (Battery back-up). So when I set up my tank last year I reluctantly spent the money (around $550 for the complete setup) on a TRIPP LITE POWERVERTER APS 750 POWER INVERTER 750W 2 OUTLETS 12VDC-120V with double 12V DEEP CYCLE MARINE BATTERIES.

Well... all I can say is... I'm glad I did. We had a very mild Hurricane season last year... so I thought I'd be OK at least until the 2007 season. But as luck has it... it wasn't meant to be.

At 5:00 AM on New Years Day... an intoxicated individual slammed into a concrete power pole in front of my building on A1A. The pole came crashing down taking with it the adjacent pole. So needless to say... NO POWER. To make matters worse... the local power company accidentally damaged a natural gas main while digging the hole for the replacement pole.

So what it all added up to was... 20 hours without electricity. :closed:

My backup system worked very well. I ran my main return pump BlueLine 40 hdx (130 Watts) and my Tunze Turbelle 6060 (11 Watts) for 8 straight hours on the first battery. On the second battery I decided to just run the Tunze 6060 just in case that the power was going to be out until the next day. It went 12 straight hours until the power came back on after 1:00 AM. The battery indicator was showing 3/4 charge just before the power returned... so I'm estimating I would have gotten another 18 hours or so out of it!

In case of a really bad outage... I keep a battery charger in my office at the hospital where I work. I could recharge and swap out batteries for an extended period of power loss... like after a Hurricane. Another nice feature...It works as a surge protector... and just like the computer back-ups... it kicks in instantaneously without me having to do a thing.

All in all... I'm very happy with my setup and would recommend it to anyone that can't have a generator.

http://www.reefsanctuary.com/forums...87-first-real-scare.html?highlight=tripp+lite

 

[BigAl07]

That's an impressive set up. Once I get my "built in" plan down pat I'll have to work in the "emergency" equipment into the area as well. I may just have to copy your set up word for word. I see this link is going to be in my "bookmark" section!

Thanks for the input. That's a SERIOUS back-up.

Allen

PS You could always swipe some of those deep cycle backup batteries the hospital uses. That's if you have a CRANE handy :rofl:

 

[sam wise]

i paid about £89GBP for a UPS 4.1kwh UPS unit which will run my return pumps and a heater for at least 6 hours. we get regular power-cuts, so a sound investment i think

 

[Xenomorph25]

I'm thinking about getting one of these....

I'm out of town and the power went out, and the tank is in major danger!

How long is too long without power?

Anyone know at what point everything (or different types of life?) will start to die off??

 

[BigAl07]

There are so many "Variables" in that question...

How stocked is the tank

What's the over-all health of the tank

What is the reason for the power outage (Hot or Cold)

Is anything being "done" while the tank is powerless (agitating/pouring water to introduce O2, blanket the tank to maintain temp etc).

I've had mine go without for 6-8 hours with no ill effect but I was there to occasionally agitate the water and it wasn't Hot or Cold so Room Temp wasn't an issue.

 

[Woodstock]

Lack of oxygen, build up of co2 and temp are what you have to worry about during a power outage. Like Allen said, the length of time before dieoff occurs depends on many factors.

If you at least get a battery powered back up device to keep your main return pump/filter going, that will go a long way to keep things alive. Most return pumps are low wattage and will last a long time on the battery. Heaters pull a lot more current and will shorten the battery's life considerably.

I now have a stand-by natural gas generator that powers 75% of my home (including all fish tanks).

 

[Cloudburst2000]

My brother-in-law and I have been wondering about back-up systems on our tanks. We live in an area where power-outages due to the weather are common. We lucked out last year and were one of the few sections of Kentucky that didn't lose power during the major icestorms. People in the same town were without power for days and my mom was without power for 2 1/2 weeks. Only a few months before that we had some major wind storms that resulted in many power-outages. A friend was without power for about a week due to the windstorm and then without power for 2 weeks due to the ice storm so in the span on like 3 months she was without power for three weeks. We tend to get large ice storms every few years. The last major one resulting in major power-outages was about four or five years ago. No tanks at that time thankfully, but it does seem to be a regular occurrence around here so we were thinking about what precautions to take. My thinking is that in the end spending $400-$500 on a back-up would be better then having your tank crash and losing who knows how much money worth of live sand/live rocks/live stock...not to mention all the work put into getting the system running in the first place.

Does anyone have suggestions on what to buy? I would think as long as your heater, pumps, and filters are running you should be okay. But what about lighting? I know it's okay to have lights off for a few days, but what if we were to lose power going in 1-2 weeks like happened in the last ice storm for many people. I wouldn't think you'd want to be without lights that long especially if you had corals.

 

[SiNiStEr NaTiOn]

this is one thing I been thinking of myself. because where I live we do expierence short power outage off and on. So thats why I been thinking about this pretty much since day 1 when I decided to get back into this hobby. I would probably have my pumps on it to keep the circulation going.

 

[WayneT]

Living in Northwest Tennessee I have the same problem as Cloudburst with power outages. I'm seriously thinking of picking up a tri-fuel generator so I can plug it right into my natural gas line for backup. Worse case if the natural gas isn't working I can use propane or gasoline. John Deere makes one that would take care of my tank, freezer, refrigerator, TV and lights for about $1,200. I have a wood stove for backup heat so I won't have to worry about the heater in winter months.

Anybody have any experience with these?

 

[Cloudburst2000]

Living in Northwest Tennessee I have the same problem as Cloudburst with power outages. I'm seriously thinking of picking up a tri-fuel generator so I can plug it right into my natural gas line for backup. Worse case if the natural gas isn't working I can use propane or gasoline. John Deere makes one that would take care of my tank, freezer, refrigerator, TV and lights for about $1,200. I have a wood stove for backup heat so I won't have to worry about the heater in winter months.

Anybody have any experience with these?

That wouldn't really work for me since I live in an apartment (that I rent from said brother-in-law). Something like that could maybe work for my brother-in-law since they own their house. I just want something to keep my tank running in the case of another large, multi-day power-outage. I would just go room with my sister and brother-in-law if they had a power generator so I don't have to worry about the lights/TV/fridge/etc. And my heat is electric now, but they still have the boiler system hooked up in the case of a major power-outage in the winter to act as a back-up source of heat. So the apartment should never get horribly cold. It's not like the heater on the tank would be trying to keep the tank at 78F while the surrounding air was 30F.