What would you do for back up power?

johntdaballa

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My poor men DIY battery back up for my vortech. It save my tank on the last hurricane here in FL


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First, I would not run your skimmer, lights or Apex on a battery backup. The only thing that's really necessary is flow. I run a pump in my tank as well as my return pump.

As far as what battery to get, Ecotech or DIY is best. The Cyberpower UPS you linked to is not great value for money. It contains about 200W of power total (2x 12V 9Ah batteries). Accounting for inefficiency and a 75% depth of discharge, this will only run your MP10s and return pump for about 4 hours tops. The math only gets worse if the inefficiency is higher or your equipment uses more power than I estimated (40W total).

For price comparison, you could buy two 35Ah batteries, one battery charger and an inverter for about $175. At 40Wh of consumption, this system would run your MP10s and return pump for about 15 hours, as opposed to the 4 hours on the UPS. You'd need to DIY a transfer switch to make it an "automatic" battery backup, but still, you're spending about the same money for 4x the run time.https://www.amazon.com/Ampeak-400W-...d=1533833870&sr=8-17&keywords=ac/dc/+inverter
 

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