Battery Backup System?

[mislisa]

Has anyone ever heard of a backup battery for the aquarium? we get frequent power outages (lasting anywhere between 30 mins to 3-4 hrs) here where i live, and as i am planning on getting an aquarium soon i'd like to prevent my fish dying on me if this were to happen. does anyone know of anything that would work for me? preferrably under $100.

Thanks!

 

[bodge99]

Hello,

The first thing that springs to mind is a computer UPS (uninterruptible power supply).. Ebay might be your friend here.

Bodge99.

 

[Ryan12]

Yup UPS would be a good thing to get. If you are from the states i know places like BestBuy or other computer electronic stores would prolly have something like that where you could buy in store.

 

[the biffster]

you can buy battery powered
air pumps hot water in a plastic bottle
will keep your water warm out of the
tap. filters are OK for 12 to 24 hrs
i have even had them off for 48 hrs
with no ill affect hope this helps

 

[mislisa]

Thanks! i think i've meed over-stressing the problem to myself i'll probably get one or two of the battery powered air pumps though. should be good for what i'll need!

 

[doresy]

If I had regular power-cuts I'd have a small genny (petrol generator) as a stand by for essential requirements.

 

[Geoff-]

petrol genny is overkill for the amount of power a fish tank takes to operate, and is manual start so if you're not home you're out of luck.

a UPS would keep going for maybe an hour or two for a mid-sized unit. 3-4 hour outages is hefty.. ouch. (how's all the stuff in your fridge!)

battery powered air pumps would be the cheapest option for throwing something in there to keep the oxygen levels up. everything else should be OK to be unpowered for a few hours unless you live in antarctica.

 

[mislisa]

petrol genny is overkill for the amount of power a fish tank takes to operate, and is manual start so if you're not home you're out of luck.

a UPS would keep going for maybe an hour or two for a mid-sized unit. 3-4 hour outages is hefty.. ouch. (how's all the stuff in your fridge!)

battery powered air pumps would be the cheapest option for throwing something in there to keep the oxygen levels up. everything else should be OK to be unpowered for a few hours unless you live in antarctica.

nope, not living in antartica! i probably should have mentioned that the 3-4 hr outages aren't common... maybe only once a year are the storms bad enough for that! it's just that i live in a heavily-treed area.

as for stuff in my fridge, as long as we don't open the door, it stays good!

 

[N0body Of The Goat]

A 2000vA UPS could keep a <50W filter (which importantly must be positioned to aerate the water) could keep things running on "life support" for hours. Its been something I've wanted to do for months for my 5-footer in the garage, but never had the funds to follow through. They do come up on Ebay for <£150 every now and again.

 

[raptorrex]

Has anyone ever heard of a backup battery for the aquarium? we get frequent power outages (lasting anywhere between 30 mins to 3-4 hrs) here where i live, and as i am planning on getting an aquarium soon i'd like to prevent my fish dying on me if this were to happen. does anyone know of anything that would work for me? preferrably under $100.

Thanks!

the heater is the biggest draw, not sure how long a UPS would last running a 300w heater. never mind the rest. but would an inverter and a car battery not do a job? still got the heater problem. but a 300w inverter would run your filter, and light, for some time. perhaps insulating you tank, with sheets blankets or the like? it would be cheap, using second hand batteries, and inverters cost only a few £ today.

 

[Mikaila31]

3-4 hours is nothing for a tank and filter. If its winter I might toss a sleeping bag over the entire tank to keep it warm, but at the same time they should fix it pretty quick when its 10 degrees outside. Power outages though are most common in the summer. Was driving in this super awesome storm that I probably shouldn't of been driving in. Was on a major interstate bridge crossing from MN to WI(like 60ft above the river surface) and saw a awesome lighting bolt hit ground and kill power to my entire downtown and the lights to the interstate I was driving on. Yeah but anyway all my tanks are good for at least 8 hours no filter, some are not filtered anyway, some of my filtered tanks can go for at least a week if you turn them off, probably a few days with no lighting. Biggest thing is heater, and I sure hope you know how to heat water without electricity if you really needed too. That would be the first thing to worry about imo, not the bio filter. For me though I got a well, so no power means maybe 10 gallons max before you lost water pressure then good luck getting water from the tap. I would have to drive to the river to get water if I needed to do a water change. Techincally if you were afraid of losing bacteria you can float the media in the tank so it moves around more and if you really wanted transfering it to a bucket of water with ammonia in it would keep it going. You would need to try to stay on top of the tank levels though. But I have so many plants my filters are mostly secondary.