Uninterrupted Power Supply?

[Bill T.]

Anyone know about UPS for aquariums?
What cost, where to buy, effectiveness?

I have a 240 litre tank with a 400w external flow heater and a couple of e-heim canisters. Would like to know they will keep on going whilst I am on holidays, even if the power fails at home altogether.

[chrissyoscar]

I'm no expert but I don't think a UPS can supply power for to long.
I have one on both our computers and I think they only supply enough power to keep them running for 30min max. Actually one will only keep the computer running for about 15min. The more expensive one will keep the computer running for 30min. There purpose is to give you enough time to shut things down so you don't loose information or damage equipment.

Oscar

[lesley]

I've been told that you could hook them up to a car battery or similar and they can last a lot longer, have been meaning to research it for a while but have not gotten around to it yet.

Lesley

[Bill T.]

I've been doing some homework on this subject. I could put a UPS together with off the shelf items for not too much: automatic charger, deep cycle battery, voltage inverter.

Trouble is even with a huge battery, you don't get much heating time - maybe 10 hours max. with a 300w heater. O.K. if you get a lot of power blackouts in your area, but not if you get a prolonged blackout.

The e-heim pumps are not a problem as they pull about 8w each.

So.....if only there was a low voltage heater?????

[chrissyoscar]

What you could do is reduce the temp in the tank during the blackout. If you reduce it to say 22c your heater will be on less and therefore you'll get more use from the UPS. You can even change heaters and use a 150w heater during the blackout. 1/2 the watt will give you 20hrs from the UPS. The discus will handle a lower tank temperature as it's only temperory.

Oscar

[lesxda]

on sunday
had 3 hour power blackout have very small generator had airpump going and gas heater but lost half of all wriggles as temp dropped to 26C from 29C.

les

[lesxda]

Yesterday

I came out to the garage after sleeping all day anly to find my taks power all off.

we had a power surge and only this circuit was off...
tanks were at 23C

fish all well just very quiet

afetr the power put back on all went well..

checked the water today and all temp and water test great...

fish eating well

les

[kalebjarrod]

you can by a battery power beeper that starts beeping when the power gose off

[TomNS]

sorry to dig up an old thread but if you can pick up a medium sized UPS they will be able to power your aquariums for at least an hour.

I have a APC 700 UPS that will run powerheads, lights, heaters and air for 1.5 hours - the batteries are pretty old so not a good as it could be. With these they are normally 24V battery powered so two deep cycle batteries can easily be linked up and the UPS will charge them fine.

The best thing about these are they are a pure sine wave inverter so they give very clean power.

Tom

[Mulisha]

What about just living Queensland then you won't need a heater LOL
The lowest it would go down to would be like 28 degrees 8-) 8-) 8-)

[FishLover]

You can hook up your filters with the UPS, which will last you for long hours. Do some math on watts of your filters and UPS. In most cases, the UPS are rated for 400W to 700W from 10 to 30 minutes depends on the model. You filters mostly run on 30w and if you have one rated for 400w and 30 minutes, it could last you for hours. Don't bother to hook up the lights because they can drain your UPS faster. Fish can do without lights for few days without any problem. On the other hand, after 2+ hours of power outage, your bio media in the cannister filter is dead and that could be deadly to your fish. That's why you need to hook up the filters to the UPS, not the lights.

You have other things to worry if the power is out for more than a day or so.

Heater is another story. No UPS is powerful enough for that kind of watts unless you pay high price. I have 2 400W heaters for my 6x2x2 tank and there is noway for me to afford UPS for them.