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[alkamar]

The electricity in our neighborhood runs underground which would seem to be a more reliable way to go since storms, wind, trees and out of control vehicles can't harm it. When the electric goes out on our street, the neighbors behind me usually always have electric which is via telephone poles. All I have to do is be waiting on a main event on UFC fight night and of course the electric is going to be out until 5AM the next morning. I have a backup for my charter phone box and linksys wireless, but now it looks like I need to look seriously at options for the reef tank. We ended up hooking up an inverter to the van and running an extension cord to a maxijet to help keep everything alive and well. I had to be at work early in the morning and I was surprised to find out my wife woke up at 2am and ran the pump for another hour which seems to have worked.

I would like to be prepared next time and have even been looking at a few possibilities. I could only imagine what would have happened if we were gone for a few days and the repair guys have even more trouble fixing the problem. They have to dig up the street to repair it and actually find the right spot.

 

[sperry]

My power is fairly stable but I have at least one of my pumps on a computer UPS. The best solution would be a small generator though.

 

[alkamar]

I would love to have an automatic one that could run half the house, but I'm not sure if I can get that past the wife. Someone on here recently had one installed. That would be ideal. Walker said the Tunze electronic was a good option. I checked it and it will run on a 12V battery when power goes out. The safety connector (device that switches from wall to battery) is an optional device and you also have to supply the battery and get a controller. Although it is high, it is cheaper than a generator.

The thing about an apc is that mine will only run low power devices for an hour and the power was out for over 8 hours.

 

[pjbusby]

I have an old ups that I was thinking about installing on my reef.
I was just wondering if I should only plug in the heater and the filter so the battery would last longer? My grandparents lived in this house before me and they once went a week without power in '94, but that was a rare ice storm though. Otherwise power stays on pretty good. I used to live in Lexington, and I was constantly coming home to find my filter needing priming.

Every time the wind blows the power goes out there.

 

[alkamar]

A heater would drain a ups very quickly. I'd stick with the filter only if it were me.

 

[scarson61]

I run one tunze 6060 on the ups I have and it will last up to two hours (just replaced the battery it was down to 1 hour before I replaced it) The Korallias would not work on the UPS the would chatter and never get started on it both pumps use low voltage so I do not know why the korallia was that way. I am getting ready to buy a generator from harbor tools the prices are great for a generator so I am hoping they are not total pieces of junk.

 

[alkamar]

<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=13382758#post13382758 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by scarson61
...The Korallias would not work on the UPS they would chatter and never get started on it both pumps use low voltage so I do not know why the korallia was that way. I am getting ready to buy a generator from harbor tools the prices are great for a generator so I am hoping they are not total pieces of junk.

You are correct. I was going to plug the Koralia 2 into the power inverter, which provides 400w continuous and 800w surge. The Koralia never kicked in and just chattered no matter what you did. That is disappointing. My maxijet 1200 had to pull up the slack. I want to get one of the rack-mount ups systems at work if they get rid of one and hook several deep cycle batteries in parallel to get some descent run-time.

I'll still try to convince the wife we can't live without a generator. :rollface:

 

[H@rry]

Which model of generator are you looking at? I guess it's about time I bit the bullet and bought one too. We've got too much invested in these reefs to risk another icy winter.

 

[alkamar]

<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=13387024#post13387024 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by H@rry
Which model of generator are you looking at? I guess it's about time I bit the bullet and bought one too. We've got too much invested in these reefs to risk another icy winter.

Here is a rating chart for whole house generators:

http://www.generators.smps.us/ratings.html

I would like to have something like this:

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0...mp=1789&creative=9325&creativeASIN=B000EUF7A4

It would run my central air, tank, and a few more items.