Battery back up

GatorScott · Jun 28, 2017

Does anyone know if a unit such as this would power a system for an hour maybe two? I have a FOWLR tank with a 72" Current Pro and Aquaclear 110 and Pp8 powerheads. Also have a BC32 with steves LED upgrade. Was thinking of ordering one each just to power the lighting and maybe a power head/filter in each.
APC Back-UPS 850VA UPS Battery Backup & Surge Protector with USB Charging Ports (BE850M2) https://www.amazon.com/dp/B01HDC21FE/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_api_Mz7uzbGK3MYY0

chipmunkofdoom2 · Jun 28, 2017

Personally, I wouldn't run any lighting on the battery backup. Lighting is not an essential life support device, especially since you have a FOWLR tank with no photosynthetic corals. In the event of a power outage, the most important things to run are your pumps to keep water moving.

The unit above is rated at 450w, which means that's about all the power you'd get out of it. To calculate very roughly how long this would run your equipment, take the total number of watts (450) and divide that by your equipment draw. If we assume you want to run HOB and PP8, and we assume your HOB uses 15W and your PP8 uses 15W, then your total power draw would be 30W. If you divide 450W by 30W, you'd get around 15, which is the maximum amount of hours that UPS would run your HOB and your PP8. Obviously you'd need to add in your Biocube's pumps to that figure, but that's the basic idea of how you can calculate runtime.

That, of course, comes with a few caveats. That 450W figure assumes 100% efficiency of the inverter and other electronics inside the UPS. Which is unlikely. To be safe, I would only assume you're getting 80% of the total capacity rated, max. Additionally, assuming the device uses a standard SLA battery, it is not a smart idea to discharge these things all the way to zero. I'd knock another 10% - 20% or so off the figure so you don't overdraw the battery. So if your original calculation says you'd be able to use that UPS for 15 hours and we're only assuming we'll get 70% of rated capacity, that works out to be about 10 hours of total runtime (15 hours * 70% = 10.5 hours).

Personally, I would go with something a bit higher capacity. The problem with these UPSs is that you can't upgrade them once you buy them. You're stuck with that capacity forever. If you find out that you need more capacity, you have to buy another. Either that, or I would DIY a system with an AC/DC inverter, battery, and transfer switch to cut between wall power and inverter power in the event of a failure.

Brew12 · Jun 28, 2017

chipmunkofdoom2 said:
Personally, I wouldn't run any lighting on the battery backup. Lighting is not an essential life support device, especially since you have a FOWLR tank with no photosynthetic corals. In the event of a power outage, the most important things to run are your pumps to keep water moving.

The unit above is rated at 450w, which means that's about all the power you'd get out of it. To calculate very roughly how long this would run your equipment, take the total number of watts (450) and divide that by your equipment draw. If we assume you want to run HOB and PP8, and we assume your HOB uses 15W and your PP8 uses 15W, then your total power draw would be 30W. If you divide 450W by 30W, you'd get around 15, which is the maximum amount of hours that UPS would run your HOB and your PP8. Obviously you'd need to add in your Biocube's pumps to that figure, but that's the basic idea of how you can calculate runtime.

That, of course, comes with a few caveats. That 450W figure assumes 100% efficiency of the inverter and other electronics inside the UPS. Which is unlikely. To be safe, I would only assume you're getting 80% of the total capacity rated, max. Additionally, assuming the device uses a standard SLA battery, it is not a smart idea to discharge these things all the way to zero. I'd knock another 10% - 20% or so off the figure so you don't overdraw the battery. So if your original calculation says you'd be able to use that UPS for 15 hours and we're only assuming we'll get 70% of rated capacity, that works out to be about 10 hours of total runtime (15 hours * 70% = 10.5 hours).

Personally, I would go with something a bit higher capacity. The problem with these UPSs is that you can't upgrade them once you buy them. You're stuck with that capacity forever. If you find out that you need more capacity, you have to buy another. Either that, or I would DIY a system with an AC/DC inverter, battery, and transfer switch to cut between wall power and inverter power in the event of a failure.

+1

I was typing out something similar, but you absolutely nailed it.

brett_schn · Jun 28, 2017

I was thinking stuff like that but I decided u two could write it lol... joking

GatorScott · Jun 28, 2017

chipmunkofdoom2 said:
Personally, I wouldn't run any lighting on the battery backup. Lighting is not an essential life support device, especially since you have a FOWLR tank with no photosynthetic corals. In the event of a power outage, the most important things to run are your pumps to keep water moving.

The unit above is rated at 450w, which means that's about all the power you'd get out of it. To calculate very roughly how long this would run your equipment, take the total number of watts (450) and divide that by your equipment draw. If we assume you want to run HOB and PP8, and we assume your HOB uses 15W and your PP8 uses 15W, then your total power draw would be 30W. If you divide 450W by 30W, you'd get around 15, which is the maximum amount of hours that UPS would run your HOB and your PP8. Obviously you'd need to add in your Biocube's pumps to that figure, but that's the basic idea of how you can calculate runtime.

That, of course, comes with a few caveats. That 450W figure assumes 100% efficiency of the inverter and other electronics inside the UPS. Which is unlikely. To be safe, I would only assume you're getting 80% of the total capacity rated, max. Additionally, assuming the device uses a standard SLA battery, it is not a smart idea to discharge these things all the way to zero. I'd knock another 10% - 20% or so off the figure so you don't overdraw the battery. So if your original calculation says you'd be able to use that UPS for 15 hours and we're only assuming we'll get 70% of rated capacity, that works out to be about 10 hours of total runtime (15 hours * 70% = 10.5 hours).

Personally, I would go with something a bit higher capacity. The problem with these UPSs is that you can't upgrade them once you buy them. You're stuck with that capacity forever. If you find out that you need more capacity, you have to buy another. Either that, or I would DIY a system with an AC/DC inverter, battery, and transfer switch to cut between wall power and inverter power in the event of a failure.

This is the exact response I needed. Thank you very much!

TheLadyCrash · Jun 28, 2017

I experienced my first long power outage on Monday. It lasted for about 4.5 hours. Unfortunately I don't know the specs on the UPS my husband let me use but it's the one he normally has his servers running on.

It was fully charged and running my 150w heater and the 2 return pumps drained that sucker in an hour. A friend loaned me an inverter for the car but then that over-heated after an hour and a half.

Lessons learned:
1.) nothing is absolutely vital (unless it's super cold/hot) aside from maintaining water movement/flow
2.) always have battery operated air stones (with extra batteries) on hand

GatorScott · Jun 29, 2017

That's good advice thank you

tom reilly · Jun 29, 2017

Ditto on battery powered airstones.you can get them at sporting goods store that will run 24 hours on 2 D cell bats. They are meant for use in a bait bucket.

TheLadyCrash · Jun 29, 2017

tom reilly said:
Ditto on battery powered airstones.you can get them at sporting goods store that will run 24 hours on 2 D cell bats. They are meant for use in a bait bucket.

I picked up a set from PetSmart yesterday as our electric company decided they needed to do an "emergency" 6 hour maintenance window today. They were around $10 each and lasted the entire window on the same batteries. Fish were scared at first and then hopped into the bubbles like they were hitting a jacuzzi for a relaxing spa day.

NeuroticAquatics · Jun 30, 2017

The battery powered air stones are the way to go.

As for bubbles, many, many years ago, I had a fish-only tank set up and had two air stones going constantly (gasp!). The fish loved the bubbles and swam through them all the time.

GatorScott · Jun 30, 2017

NeuroticAquatics said:
The battery powered air stones are the way to go.

As for bubbles, many, many years ago, I had a fish-only tank set up and had two air stones going constantly (gasp!). The fish loved the bubbles and swam through them all the time.

That's awesome. I might add one just for looks and see if the fish like it. I think too many times people get caught up in "the right way" or a cookie cutter setup but nice thing about this hobby is really there's a 100 different ways to achieve a successful tank and the only thing that really matters is the fish/coral are healthy and happy and owner is happy with the tank.

chipmunkofdoom2 · Jun 30, 2017

Battery powered air pumps work, they're just not automatic. You have to be home to see the power failure, then manually intervene to get life support back to your tank. If you leave your house at 8:00AM for work and don't get back til 6:00PM, if your power fails the minute after you leave, your tank could be without power for 10 hours or so. Perhaps more if you grab a drink with friends after work or have to run errands.

The good thing about a UPS or DIY battery backup system is your critical life support equipment automatically switches over to battery power in the event of a failure. No manual intervention required. UPSs aren't perfect, and capacity is a big limiting factor, but for me the automatic failover is critical.

tgp4274 · Jun 30, 2017

I got a ups from my work but the battery was shot..
A buddy of mine had a bran new sealed motorcycle batt that he gave me..
I pulled the old battery out n ran wires outa the ups to the larger batter
So far works great
Right now am running two mp10's on it
Not sure how long it'll last just yet but has already some over two hrs without a prob

tom reilly · Jun 30, 2017

Need to figure a way to run the battery operated pumps with the auto system as they would do the job at very low power use.
My fear as I live in South Texas is power loss when its 101 outside.

chipmunkofdoom2 · Jun 30, 2017

tom reilly said:
Need to figure a way to run the battery operated pumps with the auto system as they would do the job at very low power use.
My fear as I live in South Texas is power loss when its 101 outside.

Temperature control in those conditions is going to be very very difficult without a generator. A 1/10HP JBJ chiller purportedly uses around 300W. Assuming 75% efficiency, a 500W UPS would run the chiller for barely one hour.

If your car has a powerful enough alternator, you could potentially run an inverter directly from your car's positive and negative terminals, then run an extension cord into your house to run the chiller. You'd need to keep the car running while the chiller runs though, and in 101* conditions, cooling a stationary internal combustion engine may become nontrivial. Additionally, chillers pull some serious power. You should probably check to make sure your alternator's low/idle speed power rating is sufficient enough to run the car and the inverter. If that's not an option, a gas generator may be the only way to go. Unless you have an spare freezer you can fill with frozen water bottles to use in the event of a power outage, which may not be a bad solution depending on how much space you have.

On the lower power use front, however, modern DC aquarium pumps consume relatively low amounts of power. Vortech MP10s purportedly use 18W at max power. A 500W UPS at 75% overall efficiency, which is a smaller UPS, would run an MP10 for around 20 hours at full speed. So if you're smart with what you run on the UPS, you can actually get a lot of mileage out of one with efficient hardware.

TheLadyCrash · Jun 30, 2017

tom reilly said:
Need to figure a way to run the battery operated pumps with the auto system as they would do the job at very low power use.
My fear as I live in South Texas is power loss when its 101 outside.

BRS sells a battery powered air pump that automatically turns on when the power goes out. I'll be picking a couple up soon as I like the automatic power outage detection.

http://www.bulkreefsupply.com/silent-air-pump-with-battery-powered-back-up-sab11.html

Katrina71 · Jun 30, 2017

TheLadyCrash said:
BRS sells a battery powered air pump that automatically turns on when the power goes out. I'll be picking a couple up soon as I like the automatic power outage detection.

http://www.bulkreefsupply.com/silent-air-pump-with-battery-powered-back-up-sab11.html

Thank you for the link! I've been looking for this.

NeuroticAquatics · Jul 1, 2017

I've never seen those. I think I need a couple.

Engloid · Jul 8, 2017

Yeah, if power is out, you want to concentrate any battery power on flow and aerating. I had a 6hr power outage once that cost me about $1200 in fish. I have a lot of rock, so I think the bacteria consumed all the oxygen very quickly.