Battery Backup help / recs? Apartment dweller with no balcony

[SteveMM62Reef]

When I worked Computer Main Frame AIr Conditioning and Backup Power, the Rule of thumb was not to go over 80% of Capacity on Batteries, Generators, Converters and Inverters “UPS” unless you were asking for a World of trouble. Also I would avoid Inverters, and dual batteries just due to the added problems with them. There’s plenty of small DC Pumps out there to use. You don’t need 100% Water Flow unless you are out for a week or more, then it’s a True Syn-Wave Generator.

 

[BitReef]

I have most of my equipment (everything but lights and heater) hooked up to a CyberPower 850va UPS. It can keep my return pump, powerheads, ato, etc running for 2-3 hours. This is my solution for short term, automatic power backup. Heaters draw a lot of power. I figure the temp in my tank won’t drop a lot in 2-3 hours.

For longer term outages you would need a larger battery (something like the Ecoflow Delta series) or a inverter generator.

I had a power outage last month that lasted for 6 hours. My tank ran on the UPS for about 2.5 hours. After that I started up my generator.

 

[BitReef]

To roughly calculate how long a battery option will run a device:

1. Find out the battery capacity in Watt Hours (Wh). Most battery options are going to list their power capacity as Amp Hours (Ah) or Watt Hours (Wh). For example, the Ice Cap battery backup that was mentioned has 2.5Ah of power (that’s not a lot). My CyberPower UPS has 9Ah. If the power is listed as Ah, then multiply it by 12 to get Wh. So my UPS has 108Wh (9Ah x 12v).

2. Find out the power draw of the device in watts. Most devices will list their power usage in watts. For example, a Nero 5 is listed as using 30W max (probably at max speed).

3. Divide the battery capacity by the power draw of the device. In this example the CyberPower (108Wh) battery could run a Nero 5 (30W) at max speed for about 3.5 hours in a perfect scenario (108 / 30 = 3.6). If you run the Nero 5 at 50% speed you might get closer to 6 hours. In reality you won’t get the full time due to losses here an there, but it will give you a rough idea.

 

[Tom2257]

After a year and a half I've decided that just having a bubbler that comes on when the power goes off is simply irresponsible at this point, given the amount of time and money I've put into this tank. Trouble is, as someone who lives in a small apartment with no balcony, generators are out of the question. What makes matters worse is the fact my Nero 5's apparently are incompatible with the vortech battery backups that I know a lot of people use.

As I understand, in a power outage, flow is most important, followed by heat, seemingly. I've put out a post in my local forum to try and get a sense of how often / for how long we get power outages to try and get a sense of what is reasonable to expect. I've luckily not experienced any yet but as someone from the Texas coast, I'm very familiar with power being out for days at a time.

I've also gone and attached my Apex's readout for power consumption, though I'm not actually positive on how to read it (whether the usage listed is per day or some other measurement). Technically the pump back to the display isn't on an Apex outlet (should I change that?) but otherwise basically everything else is.

Apologies if this is a dumb question, but how can I tell how long a UPS would power, say, just one of my Neros? Are there other / better options than a UPS that I could get in my current living situation? Any experience w getting the backup to work w the Apex? Thanks in advance!

I am going to get a solar powered generator for mine.

 

[spawn79]

As someone mentioned earlier and in the BRS videos the computer backup UPS units don't last very long. The inverter is the weakness as so much power is lost from the conversion from DC to AC and then back to DC for most of the pumps in use today. The best option is to keep everything DC from the start. A fairly small battery can see quite a long runtime.

If you aren't so much into the DIY thing take a look at this little box. Reef Boxx It's just one guy that basically put all the parts we buy off amazon into a nicer looking package along with all the stuff you need to connect to whatever pumps and batteries you want to use. I personally plan on buying one when I start stocking my tank with anything more expensive. If you wanted you could also put huge batteries on the thing and run stuff like your router/modem, laptop, phone (already can with the usb port on the box), etc, etc. All you need is the right size battery and connectors.

If you search a bit there's also a video from Telegraham on youtube where he talks about what this thing does.

edit: The guy who makes this is also highly responsive to any questions you might have. At least right now anyway. If he gets swamped with orders that might change but he can make mods and give you the right connections for whatever project and voltage you have.

 

[brandon429]

Don't forget biological preps to enhance how much carry your hardware on backup has to provide, to keep target animals alive

No power outage prone reef should have a sandbed

Sandbeds inevitably store waste and housed on the waste are bacterial aggregates that compete against fish for oxygen, and they pump waste acids

We pay to run sandbed bioload that makes no help towards nitrification and only consumes resources

When those aerobic communities in sandbeds crash due to temp issues or circulation issues, that can begin a loss cascade, don't reef dirty in outage prone reefs and your pump or bubbler provides more

Also, though it doesn't seem this way, a small bubbler moves in more oxygen and drives out co2 better than a medium and sometimes even a large pump. The bubbler uses less energy

Pumps don't beat bubblers, look up efficiency charts for laminar current turnover and surface boil as compared to eddy currents from pumps
Eight dollar bubbler wins across the board

Do bubblers and bare bottom as efficiency preps, live clean in the outage prone reef.

 

[workhz]

I just had a car battery that would still crank a car but was getting old. Instead of exchanging it and getting a $20 rebate I kept it and put it on a trickle charger.

I know need to set up that tunze contraption to switch the battery power in case of power outage.
This reef box thing is interest because at $99 it’s not much more than the tunze $60 solution.

 

[bakbay]

Check this out

Thread 'DIY Bootleg "EcoTech" Battery Backup'
https://www.reef2reef.com/threads/diy-bootleg-ecotech-battery-backup.945396/