battery back up

[matt2364]

I live in Columbus, OH and we have had two pretty lengthy power outages in the last year. With the weather being as cold as it is, I need some sort of battery backup that I can run my heaters on when the power is out. Does anyone have any recommendations? I was thinking about one of the computer backups, but they will only run 450 watts for like 14 minutes or something. My heaters are only 100 watts or something, but still that only gives me an hour of power. This is a rental apartment so I cannot get a full blown generator or anything. I just need something small that could run my heaters for a day or so. Any recommendations would be great!
Also, I was considering boiling some of my tank water and then pouring it in every now and then to maintain the correct temperature. I was, however, scared that the non-stick pans might release some sort of chemical that would be detrimental to my aquarium. Anyone have any thoughts on this?
I ended up just wrapping my tank in a lot of blankets and then put a bunch of candles on the tank to heat the bottom of the glass. This seemed to work pretty well, I would just be scared to leave or go to sleep with all these candles burning under my tank.

 

[matt2364]

No one?

 

[westwind77]

I am curious as well. I never worried too much with my nano, a couple deep cycles and a power inverter takes care of it, but with my 110 X-HI I am wondering what one needs for power to keep things 'ok' until main power is restored.

 

[sparkymedic]

i bought one of the computer back ups to run my heater and a power head to keep some flow, even though it specificaly says on the box not to use with aquariums. i have only had one power outage since i installed it and it ran the whole 2 hours the power was out. i am not sure exactly how long it would run but i figure thats better than nothing. i elevated the back up off the ground with some old phone books and made sure i had drip loops on all the cords. also wipe the cords off every couple of weeks to make sure you have no salt creep going down to the back up.

 

[matt2364]

I was also looking at one of these computer back ups but the ones I have seen only run a 400w computer for 13-14 minutes or something. I am assuming that it could then run a 100w heater for only an hour or so.
Sparkmedic: Which model of computer back up do you have? How many watts, etc.
Thanks.