------Nano Tank Disaster Prevention--------

[Acoustic]

--------------IMPORTANT MESSAGE---------------


Home Depot sells a battery backup that looks like a power strip that lasts for 28 hours using all 6 plugins. It is about the size of a shoe box but thinner and it only costs 75 dollars! I saw that and immediately thought about my tank. It is small and black. It is in the Electrical department with the power strips and surge protectors. I am going to buy one when I get paid. I imagine that just running my pump and skimmer during a power outage will probably run for 3 days.

[Limbo]

Hey Acoustic,

The only problem with the lower end UPS units is that they don't put out "true sine wave" electricity. All of your pumps need this in order to run properly,....without a true sine, the powerheads and other pumps will chatter, and put out about 1/8 the flow that they normally do.

When I was shopping for UPS units, the lowest end APC UPS that I found that put out true sine-wave power was the SU700NET, which Frys has for $299.99. I tried almost ALL of the lower end APC units (Back UPS units), and my power heads sounded like they were about to keel over : )

Jim

[SanDiegoReefs]

Is this true for some surge protectors too? My powerheads will randomly "chatter" and I've never known why.

-moore

[Limbo]

I'm not sure about surge protectors.....I would think that if plugged in, they should be giving straight AC power.

Do you have a wavemaker? I know that Maxijets will chatter every once in a while when plugged into the Red Sea wavemaker. Both the Maxijet and the Red Sea Wavemaster Pro have a "soft-start" bulit into them, and the 2 soft starts run into eachother, causing the powerhead to chatter a little.

Jim

[MrKrispy]

If there is a power outrage for any real length of time the UPCs won't power everything. Corals and stuff will be fine for a few hours with no water circulation. If you have a fish load that is another matter. Two power-sensing battery air pumps will be fine for small tanks. Large tanks......