Cheap but effective battery backup for your aquarium: Do you have one?

[Mical]

My Back-up plan -

 

[Nazarite01]

Solar power with batteries for night energy. Don’t worry about hurricane storms or nothing.. but for thise that have nothing. Really think about some sort power complement just in case.

 

[Nhjmc]

Yes, I have a generator. Living in New England we have alot of bad winter storms and lose power pretty often so having generator is a must even if it's a job site generator and you run cords to/from it.

 

[DHill6]

What….I thought the title was Cheap but effective battery backups. Tesla walls and home generators aren’t cheap!

 

[Brandon Wilcox]

I have a couple Honda generators that work great if I'm in town during the outage and I have used them 4-5 times in just the last year. The only problem is cooling down the house on 100 degree days. I'm pretty sure I could power the swamp cooler but I haven't had to deal with it yet. It's only a matter of time! When I was a newbie I was so excited to get saltwater fish I didn't think of all the what ifs. Having a plan is paramount to keeping your fish and staying in the hobby.

 

[Deano the reefer]

I just addressed this very thing. I use an apex system so when it so I have my 2 832 bars arranged so on is the primary components (return pump and power heads). So if I do loose power i slow down the return pump to 30w and one gyre so only using 50 watts. This will give me 4-5 hours of power and the tank is pretty much in normal circulation so no worries. I was going to make an auto switching back up which would be nice but not heading out of town anytime soon. This is a great option for under 200 bucks. Would last even longer if i didn’t have a 220 reef. Probably 6 or 7 hours on an 80 or 100 gallon.

 

[Seascapes]

I've had two of those. The first one when I didn't have gyres. I bought a second one but it failed. Maybe because the kind I bought doesn't work with gyres. It's hooked up but doesn't work on power fail. I run my gyres through it. I now have a portable generator when we had snow in Texas, it came in after the crises, go figure, brand new still in the box. I need to find a battery backup for gyres.

 

[Tim Olson]

The power typically goes out 2-4 times a year here. Our main power backup is a standby Generator that runs the house, except for the A/C and other 220V items. Although, it usually takes about 30 minutes to get it up and running. So I have a DIY battery backup the runs my Ecotech Vectra and Vortechs. The battery backup turns on instantly when the power goes out, but won't run the Vectra more that 25%, which is barely enough to keep the system flowing. I also have multiple alerts setup that send me a text on my phone. Overall, it's a reasonable plan, but I'm still paranoid that something won't work as intended, so we've been considering a whole house natural gas generator.

 

[Zeedawg]

I have a battery backup on both my tanks for what I call 'blips', and a portable gas-powered generator in the event of an extended outage. I've experienced what in California we call PSPS (Public Safety Power Shutoff), which are power outages that are instantiated by the utility upon a wind/heat/etc event....

 

[Almoe]

It's gonna happen. You will lose power at some point. MOST of us will never experience a catastrophic power outage where we lose our whole reef tank but preparing and mitigating can sure give you peace of mind and offer assurance IF it did happen. But do we have to have a super expensive home generator in place or can we protect our tank inhabitants with simple battery backups? Let's talk about it today!

YES a generator is best but let's talk batteries!

1. What is a cheap but effective battery backup solution for your aquarium?

2. Do you have a battery backup plan in place and if so tell us what?

image via @dactylo

I like it. Where do I get it and how much??

 

[bnord]

Have belts and suspenders with Sansi-belt slacks

Had 2 EcoTech for return and powerheads, backed up with a gas powered THEN last month bit the bullet and gifted the family with a Generac - it has kicked in twice already, once for 4 hours

 

[Dom]

I think this is like the millionth time this subject has come up. LOL

 

[Seascapes]

Have belts and suspenders with Sansi-belt slacks

Had 2 EcoTech for return and powerheads, backed up with a gas powered THEN last month bit the bullet and gifted the family with a Generac - it has kicked in twice already, once for 4 hours

I've been looking at those. Maybe I'll get one soon.

 

[Seascapes]

I think this is like the millionth time this subject has come up. LOL

Someone is trying to give a hint

 

[Scuba Mike]

I had a breaker flip on my then 125 g tank while I was at Disney in Florida. At the time the Apex Fusion power notification wasn't a thing. I had a fellow reefer checking the tank every other day. He checked it Monday and all was fine. On Wednesday when he checked it again he got a call as I was parking in the disney parking lot. "I'm really sorry to report to you but I got here and your breaker had flipped and all your fish are dead. I'm removing what I am able to and restarting everything."

He had got to it in time to save the corals from a massive ammonia spike, but, it had to have shut down after he had left Monday night. I had lost power for 12 hours and the fish were fine. So, I anticipate 24 hours was probably the point at which they started suffocating one by one.

I still don't have a power back up solution, but, I have the Fusion heartbeat monitor, I've built a lot of redundancy into my electrical. I have one EB 8 on its own circuit with GFCI and a second EB 8 and the Apex computer module all powered on a separate circuit on it's own GFCI. Plus a Wyze Cam and the network router on a completely separate circuit. Should a single breaker flip it SHOULD not be catastrophic as I should be aware of it.

I agree a backup air pump is a great idea and I need to find a good one that has auto switch on if power lost.

I've considered a generator and since we have a camper now too. Debating getting the home plugin installed for one so we can use it through the house. But, still deciding on the investment being worth it. It's worth it when it's needed and when it's needed is when its too late to purchase one.

Here you go, this and a couple D batties and I use a nori clip to hold hose down and behind rocks. Use a check Valve but run hose only, air stones clog too fast.

 

[Yazannreef]

Cheap and effective is the title guys!!! Generators and expensive equipment is not in everyone's budget.

I DIY'd a battery backup based on this YouTube post:

 

[Yazannreef]

Cheap and effective is the title guys!!! Generators and expensive equipment is not in everyone's budget.

I DIY'd a battery backup based on this YouTube post:

Cost me $100 all in and it will outrun a ecotech vortech back up anyday of the week

 

[Salted]

Whole house generator. If you don’t live somewhere that disallows this then it’s the only way to go. Even something as inexpensive as a harbor freight 2000 watt generator for $550 will power your tank, and keep your fridge running and some lights on. The pic in the op shows a battery and a noco brand charger. That’s almost half the generator cost right there. Buy two or three 5G gas cans and you’d be set for about a week not running round the clock.

 

[ReefRxSWFL]

Tunze DC pumps in every tank with Deep Cycle Marine batteries. I tested the largest Tunze i have, and after a week it was still running, so….. guess that beats what Ecotech offers at 1/3 the cost. AND….. the Tunze runs at full power. Sorry Ecotech. Ill still run Radions though.

 

[Rocketfish]

I had designed a 600W Remote AC power system that powered remotely mounted 400W speakers for a car show event so they didn't have to run miles of wire. Each system had a car battery and a sine inverter. That setup would run a 400W speaker for 8 hours and still have plenty of power left. The units were picked up and charged overnight then deployed the next day.

During Snowmageddon in Texas, I was very fortunate to be close to my office... I was able to get to the office, snag one of the units, and adapt that system to run one light on each tank, 2 small heaters, and the pumps. When the power would cycle on I had an old dumb battery charger hooked up that would automatically start charging the battery. Our power cycled on and off about every 15 minutes, sometimes every 30 minutes. We were burning wood in the fireplace so the temperature in the house didn't get too low. I did not lose a single coral or fish during that event. I was EXTREMELY fortunate!

I have considered making a similar unit for emergency home aquarium use but there are already a bunch of existing options out there. Full disclosure, I only had a 30-gallon and a 12-gallon tank. If it would have been a 200-gallon tank I would have had to watch how many watts of heater I put on the system and possibly pull way back on the lights.