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

Do you have a battery backup plan in place?

  • YES (tell us in the thread)

    Votes: 161 37.3%
  • NO

    Votes: 249 57.6%
  • Other (please explain)

    Votes: 22 5.1%

  • Total voters
    432

Malcontent

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Impossible. 1000W will barely feed a typical refrigerator (800W).

My 1000W inverter has a 1600W surge rating. What kind of refrigerator draws 800W continuous?

I was able to power refrigerators during the one and only power outage I've had.

I tried powering an electric lawnmower but that was too much.
 

PhreeByrd

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My 1000W inverter has a 1600W surge rating. What kind of refrigerator draws 800W continuous?

I was able to power refrigerators during the one and only power outage I've had.

I tried powering an electric lawnmower but that was too much.
I don't see what "continuous" has to do with anything. When it runs, that's the amount of power it's going to need. And you can't predict or control when it's going to run or for how long unless you unplug it... which you will need to do if you have a theoretical 1000 watts available and you want to use your toaster. Or your game console or your desktop computer. And forget about air conditioning, electric water heating, drying your hair, using a typical microwave oven, doing laundry, or vacuuming the floor. If you have a private well, forget about that, too. Go buy some water. Even if you have a gas furnace, the blower likely requires about 800 watts, so you may be out of luck there too, unless you want to unplug or turn off almost everything else in the house -- including your aquarium, which kind of defeats the whole purpose of this discussion.

"Surge rating" for power generators, alternators and inverters defines a brief, momentary load that the equipment can handle without tripping its breaker or fuse. You should only count on having that amount of power available for a couple of seconds at a time, for example, to handle the startup power draw of a motor. That's what it's for.
 

NickSc

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I have a 500 watt converter connected to a solar charging station. Also, frozen water bottles incase it gets too hot and I need to cool down the water.
 

Malcontent

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I don't see what "continuous" has to do with anything. When it runs, that's the amount of power it's going to need. And you can't predict or control when it's going to run or for how long unless you unplug it... which you will need to do if you have a theoretical 1000 watts available and you want to use your toaster. Or your game console or your desktop computer. And forget about air conditioning, electric water heating, drying your hair, using a typical microwave oven, doing laundry, or vacuuming the floor. If you have a private well, forget about that, too. Go buy some water. Even if you have a gas furnace, the blower likely requires about 800 watts, so you may be out of luck there too, unless you want to unplug or turn off almost everything else in the house -- including your aquarium, which kind of defeats the whole purpose of this discussion.

"Surge rating" for power generators, alternators and inverters defines a brief, momentary load that the equipment can handle without tripping its breaker or fuse. You should only count on having that amount of power available for a couple of seconds at a time, for example, to handle the startup power draw of a motor. That's what it's for.

No household refrigerator runs at a continuous 800W.


When the lights went out, I had already set up my Prius in our detached garage, with a cable running from the inverter to our breaker box. All I had to do was to start the car, throw the transfer switch in the breaker box, turn on the inverter, and voila’ the lights were on. Well, to be honest, before getting to that point I had to turn off quite a few things in the house. After all, 1100W is not exactly a lot of power for an entire house; but in the following days we were able to have a relatively normal life with refrigerator, hot water, heat, lights, internet and television, all on 1100W!

We didn’t leave the house for over a week, but through our television we were able to see the incredible devastation that had swept our area. It was sobering and very sad to see how many people had lost so much. Our immediate neighborhood was lucky because no-one suffered major damage or injuries, but we were out of power for many days, and ours was the only house with lights on.

On the second day after the storm, we invited our neighbors over for dinner. People brought food that was spoiling in their refrigerator. Everybody was happy to meet their friends, enjoy some warmth, recharge cellphones, and watch TV. Most of our neighbors had not yet seen images of the storm’s damage. They were stunned.

Many such stories.
 

zoasaholic

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Simple setup ,but effective
 

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PhreeByrd

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No household refrigerator runs at a continuous 800W.

Did you bother to read what I wrote? Of course they don't. Almost nothing in your home runs continuously. That is completely beside the point. Try again.


Interesting, but it's a comment by a customer on a web site for a company selling inverters, and almost completely ignores the science. Electricity has worked the same way forever, and Prius or not, it still obeys the laws of physics. The fact that the guy had to frequently go out to his car to reset the overloaded inverter should tell you that something is wrong with this whole idea... or at least that there are definite practical limits that are being ignored.
Could a setup like this run just our aquariums? Probably. Most of our aquariums probably never draw more than 1000w of power. Leave it at that, and I'm fine.
But a couple of additional points:
I am not about to go buy a Prius just to be able to use it as power generator for my aquarium during a power outage.
What happens if you need to use the car to run to the store for something? Or to the gas station?
I'm not going to leave my garage door open during a blizzard or a hurricane so that my car can sit inside it and run. Sorry, but that is just dumb.
The life of all rechargeable batteries is predictable and finite, and depends largely upon how often they are charged and discharged. Using the batteries this way will most certainly decrease their expected lifespan, since they were not designed to be used this way. Will it make a big difference? I can't say at the moment, but with a replacement cost of $3500-$5500, it's not an item I would ignore or take lightly.

Many such stories.
I saw one. And it was a whopper. Probably sold some inverters, though.

Like I said earlier, the way electricity works has never changed. And the laws of physics are what they are. Ignore them or argue against them all you want, but nature will win every time.
 

Malcontent

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Did you bother to read what I wrote? Of course they don't. Almost nothing in your home runs continuously. That is completely beside the point. Try again.

Your entire argument is a strawman suggesting that, during an extended outage during a natural disaster, someone would turn on every electrical appliance simultaneously.

But thank you for finally conceding that peak and continuous power draw are different. I see that you were unable to back up your claim that refrigerators draw a constant 800W.

Here's a tip: don't try to argue that something that people do fairly routinely is impossible. That is a losing strategy.






Interesting, but it's a comment by a customer on a web site for a company selling inverters, and almost completely ignores the science. Electricity has worked the same way forever, and Prius or not, it still obeys the laws of physics. The fact that the guy had to frequently go out to his car to reset the overloaded inverter should tell you that something is wrong with this whole idea... or at least that there are definite practical limits that are being ignored.
Could a setup like this run just our aquariums? Probably. Most of our aquariums probably never draw more than 1000w of power. Leave it at that, and I'm fine.
But a couple of additional points:
I am not about to go buy a Prius just to be able to use it as power generator for my aquarium during a power outage.
What happens if you need to use the car to run to the store for something? Or to the gas station?
I'm not going to leave my garage door open during a blizzard or a hurricane so that my car can sit inside it and run. Sorry, but that is just dumb.
The life of all rechargeable batteries is predictable and finite, and depends largely upon how often they are charged and discharged. Using the batteries this way will most certainly decrease their expected lifespan, since they were not designed to be used this way. Will it make a big difference? I can't say at the moment, but with a replacement cost of $3500-$5500, it's not an item I would ignore or take lightly.

I saw one. And it was a whopper. Probably sold some inverters, though.

Why are you trying to turn this into a debate over hybrids? Normally, when people are losing an argument they try to turn it into one they can win but you chose another losing argument...

Besides, the fear of costly hybrid battery replacements is so 2003. They never materialized. In fact, we have cars that are entirely electric now.
 

PhreeByrd

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I am not arguing anything, Malcontent. There is nothing to argue. Science is science, facts are facts, math is math, and no number of fairly tales will change any of that. If you choose not to believe or understand, then go have fun with your 1000w inverter. Good luck.

But the fact remains that your original assertion that one can power an entire home off of a 1000w power inverter is simply not true, and any other electrical engineer will tell you the same thing.

Anybody who wants to use such a setup to provide backup power for just for their reef tank, it probably will work just fine.
 

admiralmcstabby

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Late to the party but I picked up an APC 1000 Pro UPS for my 32 gallon. Thankfully my tank is small so it should accommodate it for a decent while (I only have heater and powerheads on it). I would absolutely recommend one, I believe the batteries themselves are replaceable too.
 

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