APC Backup UPS for reef?

WOW!!! Sorry to hear Matt. Hopefully everything will pull through without a hitch.

I have been toying with the idea of battery backups for my priority systems.... seems like I shouldn't put it off. You never know what will happen.

 

Good luck my brother. Any update on the status of your tank?

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Good luck matt! Hope all turns out well with the tank! It's a shame we didn't settle this last week

 

Aye. What timing eh?

UPDATE:
Power went out late yesterday afternoon... it did not come back on until 5am this morning. That is approximately over 12 hours without power. For the first few hours it just sat there getting cold. Then they finally let me back in the house.

I went out and bought some new D batteries and hooked up my battery air-pump... the brand-new Marina air pump would not turn on! I swore a lot and knocked it a bit... then I threatened it with a screw-driver and it started up! Thank God. It fortunately came with some air-line and a air-stone. (I had air-line but was going to use some sponge for an air-stone)

I stuck the air-stone between some live rock and was happy to see the water circulating from it.

After 5am the power came back on... my actinics kicked in and I saw one of my prized Bangaii Cardinal fish - ghost-white under one of my Vortech pumps. I freaked. My baby Bangaii was also white and being pushed around be the current. They were still breathing but very weak. I don't think they could have gone much longer.

The Marina battery air-pump was a life-saver. I am sure they would have been dead without it. What almost killed them was the lack of heat I think and the ambient air being around 60 degrees (it is fog season out here in Berkeley)... I didn't use my temp gun to see what it dropped to, but I am sure it was very low. (My gas heater has an electric controller that is hard-wired - EDIT - hmmm there are double A batteries in this like my old place - TIME TO CHANGE THOSE - so I was at a loss for a DIY heater.)

Flash-forward to now... my ebo-jaeger heater has kicked in and all is well.. fish-wise. Everybody - all the Cardinals - even the baby - and my Coral Beauty are swimming around and have their color back.

Most of my corals seem ok... however my bird's nest which was already hurting from a low alk run during some overtime at work is looking very bad... this might have been the final nail on that one. A couple others don't look that great. But I will do water tests today and get my big three - alk, calc and mag dialed in and hope for the best. At least my fish are back. The rest I can deal with.

I am going to raise a flag on the 3reef homepage about having a battery air-pump and a backup system like we have been discussing on this thread. My tank could have completely been dead today. I was lucky to have something to help over that 12 hour period.

matt

 

Murphy's Law?

 

I think theres anpther law at play here. "if you consider doing something to avoid a problem, it will happen before your solution is finished.". If nobody has laid claim to this one yet, ill take it

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You should take that.

 

I've had a few scares with power outages lasting longer then six hours, I luckily have a DC to AC connector in which I pull the battery from my truck drop it on a piece of cardboard or a towel, clip on two probes and plug it all together keeps the main pump working for hours. I destroyed a battery once with it but I needed a new one anyways. And since it came from Costco I got it prorated and got a new one for like $30. It's a good idea to Have the battery backups or at least a air pump that runs on batteries.

An ounce of prevention can save you a WHOLE lot of money and suffering.

 

Glad to see everything made it.

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I saw a couple of posts asking about pure sine wave. There are two models in general stepped and pure sine wave. To keep it simple, pure sine wave is what your home electricity is. For APC only Smart-UPS models and higher come with pure sine wave. All others below are stepped. For the most part stepped is fine, but certain lighting, return pumps, and equipment require pure sine wave. I would inquire what your equipment requires.

I know if I try to use a Back-UPS models my external pump make a bad noise!!! You will damage the pump UPS or both.

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