Battery backup

[mike31154]

Don't have one currently but would like to eventually as well. I was fortunate to be home last power outage which lasted 3-4 hours. My truck has two batteries so I pulled one, hooked a 400watt inverter to it and ran some power heads, my air driven skimmer, T5 lights & 250watt heater for the duration no problem. Of course if I wasn't home none of this is any good unless it's automatic.
Until I get this set up, I'm simply using one of those cheapo Penn-Plax Silent Air B11 portable air pumps which runs on two D-cell batteries. It plugs into an electrical receptacle and senses when there's an outage via an internal relay. This will at least provide some oxygenation during an outage when I'm not home. Thinking of getting a second just in case for my 75 gal.
With respect to computer battery backups, most don't deliver sufficient current required to run heaters, lights and pumps for an extended period. Pumps only for a while I guess. In addition, the batteries in computer backups are sealed and non-serviceable. Once they're worn out, that's it. For the price a car battery hooked to an inverter like I used would be more efficient, cost effective and allow more demanding equipment to be run. I'm thinking I could use the sensing circuit and relay inside the Penn-Plax to switch an inverter hooked up to the car battery(ies).

[banditpowdercoat]

Just get a battery charger that will keep the battery up and allways run some pumps off the inverter. Thats a Bare bones UPS right there in itself

[mark]

just spec for heater and aeration, having a system to support lights and skimmers and calcium reactors etc is something the fish/corals can live without for a bit.

Nice thing about a UPS is they're automatic if thinking about a longer outage can plug a cheap generator into the UPS for line conditioning if worried about the gensets output.