Battery back up ?

[tranquility]

I live in an area that the power fails often. Does anyone have ideas for some sort of power back up for my tanks?
I have a 150g fish only and a 55g wannabee reef.

 

[viper12775]

you can use a ups battery backup mad for computers that cheap ones will run a 50 watt powerhead or whatever for about 1.5 hours i plan on getting one this month for the same reason check apc's web site the have a time calculater that will tell you how long the models will last or you can got to walmart and spend $5.00 on a battry power air pump for fishing and save some money
www.apc.com

 

[tranquility]

Does anyone remeber how to calculate wattage?
( volts x amps = watts??? )
And, how much flow do I really require?
150g fish only tank.
I have a 3MDQX-SC pump from the sump along with 2- 125 gph penguin biowheel hang on filters.
I believe that I am pumping about 1150 gph right now, does that sound about right?

 

[viper12775]

the gph sounds right the 3mdqx-sc uses 100 watts the power filters around 30 for the pair so your looking at 130 watts thats to much power for a ups backup i would get 2 maxi-jet 1200 powerheads and hook them up to the ups if you want to use your pumps you would need a generator

 

[shadow678]

Assuming your overflow is set up properly to not flood your house in the event of a power failure, putting your sump on the backup power supply would be completely unnecessary. The only neessities you should put on the backup would be your heater(assuming it is in your main tank, if not, you could move it to the main tank during the outage), an airstone, and a couple of powerheads in the main tank for water movement. The point is to provide temporary power to the absolute essentials, not completely power your tank during the outage. Filtration will be fine to shut down for a few hours until the power comes back on, and lighting is fine to be off for a day or two, so that should also not be an issue. If you live in an area that would get power outages that last more than 5-6 hours at a time, on a regular basis, then I would suggest skipping the APC BackUPS and get a good gasoline- or diesel-powered generator.

 

[pyro383]

If for just a few hours, I would not even worry about the heater. I would just run your emperors, they circulate water & oxygen. Watch Staples ad's every now & then they have great rebates on the UPS's. This past July they had the 350's va for $10 a pop and 2 weeks later they were free. I picked up 5. I have 1 setup on the emperor 400.

 

[seaguru]

Hey Pyro thanks for the tip about Staples... have been shopping around for the best deal on a UPS backup, they look pretty good.
Joe.