I'm wondering how many of you are using a battery back up system on your reef tanks. I've lived in FL now for about ten months. I'm experiencing a large number of momentary power failures. There not the type caused by hurricanes. Those last for days, weeks. These are one second or less breaks in the power that cause computers to shut down, lose unsaved material and cycle back on again.
At the same time, the aquarium power does a blip and the lights, pump, UV and chiller go out for one second and then back on. This has happened during blue bird days but, especially during storms like Saturday. I held a local club meeting and while we were admiring the tank we had a storm rolling through and in less than ten minutes, BLIP - BLIP, two power blips. One of the guys said I needed a power back up and that wouldn't happen. Well, of course my computer was affected, too. So, I went out and bought on for the computer and happy I did because yesterday we had one of those afternoon short storms that FL is famous for and BLIP the power was off and on again. The tank did it's thing, off and on again but, the computer never even knew the storm existed. One reason for having a battery back up is MH lights are not supposed to fire back up without a cooloing down period of about ten minutes. If I'm home this is not an issue but, when I'm gone it is. The unit I bought for the computer was well worth the $200 bucks.
Finally to my questions. How many of you use a battery back up system? What brand? How has it performed?
__________________ Amphibious
Reaching my 70th BD, I realize that I cannot help but grow old. However, I refuse to grow up!!! My wife would tell you, "He may be 70 but, He's going on 17". Life is wonderful with a woman like that.
I dont use a backup yet, but here in athens,ohio the power goes out all the time. well when i was the sys admin for a wireless internet company we ran a few tests on our towers. expensive test. but anyways we set up two towers one with just a backup and one with a backup plus a isulation transformer. also the both towers had the excact same equiptment and after a week we started running our tests. the tower with just the backup lasted 34 minutes and the one with the isulation transformer lasted 57 minutes. we ran tests for about two weeks and the tower with the transformer won hands down everytime. im not sure why and both companies dont know why either but from that day on we used transformers and always got a longer battery life. its pretty expensive. the transformer i beleive is $250 and the backups we were using were $150 but i thought i would share that with everyone....
i do have a battery backup, but i don't remember the name or brand, will check when i get home.
but at this point the only thinkg it will be running (not fully hooked up yet) are a few powerheads.
Both my MHballasts are designed to allow for a "cool down" period before firing again. this way i don't have to worry about that.
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I was hoping to get some discussion on my questions.
What brands?
How has it performed?
Here's a couple more. Where did you get it?
How do you determine what size to get?
__________________ Amphibious
Reaching my 70th BD, I realize that I cannot help but grow old. However, I refuse to grow up!!! My wife would tell you, "He may be 70 but, He's going on 17". Life is wonderful with a woman like that.
i havent put it through its paces to get performance info, but i do know it ran a power head (maxijet 1200) for over 30 minutes.. but that was not an intension test..
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I use a Huge Ups from Compaq I bought 3 used from a company that closed down in the area. I use them to power 2 Tunze's in the display if I loose power. I have a extra on if some one is interested.
Around here in North Carolina, most people don't have units for their tanks, and almost everyone with a computer does. In fact my family has two. But with the heat wave lately one could have saved me alot of trouble with my 55g freshwater setup. Everytime the power blipped i would have to reestablish the siphon on the filter. At my LFS they wish they had one too.
By the way, this is my first post. I'm new to this place, and don't have a saltwater setup yet. But Im deffanitely counting on getting one as soon as I get the dough. Most people around me count me as the local afficianado. odd isnt it?
I'm looking in getting one. Like Dick I was hoping there would be a discussion of some sorts. I was wondering what everyone was using and if they were happy with it. I am looking for something that will power my sio 1100 when the power goes out. Any suggestions?
sound like i need to run some tests to get some more info here..
i know my UPS will keep things running if i have a "blip" (which we dont really get here)
but i would like to see how long of a "blip" it will handle
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