Back-up air pumps for big tanks

[apayan]

I would avoid dealing with a UPS. I am a sysadmin and think they are crap on servers as well. just my opinion. ie they fail and so does everything else.

That makes great sense. I especially appreciate your opinion because I have worked in hospitals and I saw every single computer having a UPS device, but I never knew the reliability. I suppose just as much as a battery on a pump will fail so will the UPS device. Why have ANOTHER critical point of failure on a backup system!?!?

 

[apayan]

the azoo will pump air all the way to the bottom of your tank, it's automatic, does not mis a beat when the power is cut. I have had mine for about 4 years, the pump still works great, the battery finally died, I have not replaced it yet, i bought a new unit instead and using the pump for other stuff.

Is this the pump you are talking about? From the description it seems like the pump has to be running to kick to automatic battery power when the power fails.

 

[zaheda]

Try getting a Bilge pump hookes to a ups power supply.

 

[Ldagger]

That is the pump, they discontinued it? i thought the product worked very well. yes it has to be running for it to continue during a power outgage. The penn slient air are the ones that do not run until you cut the power. I run mine in a back corner where you do not really see it, i think it helps with a tank so deep with good gas exchange and some water upwelling. I know airstones are not really in vogue these days, but i think my fish appreciate it, at least they seem to give a postive response when it is running.
I have 4 silent air pumps, with 2 each toggled together, they will push near to the bottom of the tank.

 

[KEITHHAYS_2000]

Hello everyone I recently set up at 230 gallon tank. Everything is going well but to be sure that continues I have pre-run two lines of rigid tubing down the back of the tank, under the sand bed, to air dispersant tubes on either side of the tank. The idea is that if the power cuts for whatever reason these battery operated pumps click on and start delivering air and some water movement. This worked extremely well in my old 30 gallon tank, but I have run into some trouble now.

When the air pumps kick in they pump, but barely any air comes out of the end of the tubes. After looking at the situation I noticed that it is likely because the the new tank is 30 inches tall and there is considerably more pressure at the bottom of this tank that the pumps must pump again.

Does anyone know of any good self contained backup airpump system(s) that give enough pressure to pump thorough amounts of air to the bottom of my tank? The ones I have now are Million air D cell powered pumps. Any info on this would be greatly appreciated. Thanks :wave:

I am purchasing a generator myself. They are relatively cheap compared to most of the equipment. You will need to have a reasonable idea of how many watts you need to account for minus your lighting. In my case, I only need about a 3500 watt to keeping everything filtering, moving, temp, etc. This is about a $300 generator. There are smaller ones for $200 at Tractor Supply. I will likely do n+1 and get the 5000 watt ($500) so I can also make coffee.

 

[MHG]

air pumps really don't work terribly well on larger tanks for getting water moving (as you've seen) you could rig up an airlifter system to move water, but that would probably hit that "it's visible" thing that you don't seem to want.

What do you have as far as water pumps inside the tank? DC powered pumps like Vortech and Tunze have options for power outages. AC powered pumps, you could get away with on a UPS, but you really want to make sure its a decent UPS that puts out a good sine wave, many UPS units put a chopped/modified sine wave which is basically +110 - 0 - -110V which is perfectly fine for appliances that use an inverter to convert AC to DC anyways (computer, laptop, anything that charges batteries) but for something like a AC pump you could run into issues. (I've learned this the hard way when I tried to power an 8 watt pump with a "el cheapo" car inverter (killed the inverter)

While I agree you want something with a smooth sine wave to run a pump, I must take exception on a few points...

Computers tend to not like inverters (true inverters not UPS's) because the site wave is nothing more that a modified square wave.

Generators (portable) produce horrible dirty power that in most cases will destroy a computer and other appliances. High end hard wired generators are almost always installed feeding a UPS system. The UPS system is used to filter out the power and produce a smooth sine wave.


Most UPS's are also power conditioners... While they do have inverters inside to produce a modified sine wave, they are followed up with power conditioning circuits...


I agree get the generator, but I would almost certainly filter it with a UPS (at lead a 1500 but probably a 3000w...