doomed power is out/heater

[reef_lover24881]

Hello everyone,

I live in an area that has a lot of power outages in the winter.. Sometimes power is out for a day or 2. would anybody know if they make battery operated heaters for fish aquariums???I really need to prepare myself if the power goes out as it tried an 1hr ago? please help!

 

[rbnice1]

You can buy a couple UPS back-up's. Then run your heater and a power head through it. Should buy you a couple hours at least. For more then that you are going to need a generator, or a inverter ran off your car battery.

 

[bertoni]

There's no battery available that's going to be cheap and heat an aquarium for long. I'd put a powerhead or two on a battery backup, and look into a generator for longer-term outages.

How big is this system? I have no idea how many gallons it might be.

 

[Saltdog813]

The Big computer backups work fine the bigger you go the longer they stay on!! Best Buy or Radio Shack or Compusa.

 

[reef_lover24881]

Do you know where i can get one?

 

[reef_lover24881]

Good idea Saltdog813.Its a 34g solona, with far to much $ in it.

 

[bertoni]

I got my back unit (it's an APC) from Fry's, a local electronic vendor. If you do the math, they won't last long under a resistive load like a heater. They'll run small computers for hours, though.

 

[bertoni]

Oops, we overlapped. I don't think any computer backup you'd care to buy is going to last a couple of days in cold weather, but 34g is fairly small. I did the math for my 29g systems and didn't bother with the heater.

 

[reef_lover24881]

How much would a generator cost? I just need to get something to keep the tank warm for at least a day. I thought i might periodically add small amounts of water that Ive heated over a fire or on a gas stove to keep temp up.

 

[Chi6488]

A 2000 watt quiet generator is the honda eu 2000/ Get one . I have two plus a loud 6500/8500 coleman for other stuff

1 gallon runs for 5 hrs

 

[Chiefsurfer]

honestly, resistive loads are the worst. They are the most inefficient and costly sources of power use in the aquarium.

If you are prone to power outages, that last a long time, has to be a generator. There are many options, and I guess you could me a semi-expert on batteries, but nothing that is anywhere NEAR cost-efficient enough to use. I know a guy who has 12 batteries, all 12 connected together, can run his entire house(all wired for 12v, so he is ENTIRELY off the power grid) for 7 days. The cost is roughly $3,000 a battery, and you MUST have 12 to make 12volts of power. You could use 3-4 golf cart batteries, and probably get JUST ABOUT 2 days out of the heater for that tank, but the batteries will have to be replaced every 7-8 yrs depending on use, charging etc. but the cost would be about $300 for those batteries. ROUGHLY what you would pay for a generator.

Generator is realy the way to go. You could use your car battery with an inverter, but you'd have to run at least 12 hours per 24 hour period to keep your car battery charged.

 

[reef_lover24881]

well how much would a good generator cost me?

 

[reef_lover24881]

Im a bit on the broke side right now tuition is killing me but i can put it on a credit card. I love having good credit=) What make would you suggest I buy?

 

[Chiefsurfer]

Likely ANY size generator is well above what you would need to run the entire tank on most days in terms of power output. you want the best, Honda, dewalt. You want mid-priced, there are TONS. You want cheap, they are out there. Likely loud, and could be troublesome.

You can find a decent one at like a Home Depot for about $400. You can find a cheap one online, or at a tool "outlet" for about $300, and the Honda/dewalt type probably start at like $600-700.

The higher quality is going to be quiter.

 

[cjj14u]

I know this is intuitive but make sure you dont run the generator (if you do get one) indoors!!!:hmm3:

 

[Sisterlimonpot]

I got an APC back-ups es 500 that I bought spacifically for power outages and it won't even run a single powerhead. I don't know how people get these things to work. That was $700 well spent.

 

[TomDe]

I got an APC back-ups es 500 that I bought spacifically for power outages and it won't even run a single powerhead. I don't know how people get these things to work. That was $700 well spent.

Really? That's a bummer...I used to use a smart 1500 APC. They were around 5-600 new and I got it for $125 used with a full charged battery. It would run an old Seio 1100 I had for hours.

 

[Sisterlimonpot]

Really? That's a bummer...I used to use a smart 1500 APC. They were around 5-600 new and I got it for $125 used with a full charged battery. It would run an old Seio 1100 I had for hours.

I have that particular Seio, and I don't know if the thing is too smart but even when I had that plugged into it would run for 2 seconds after simulated poweer outage and the UPS would beep and shut down like it was to much of a load for it to carry.

 

[Popeye]

How much would a generator cost? I just need to get something to keep the tank warm for at least a day. I thought i might periodically add small amounts of water that Ive heated over a fire or on a gas stove to keep temp up.

If you do that, you might want to consider putting the warm water in a closed plastic bag and floating it in the tank. You will get the heat transfer without adding water. Think of it as a hot water bottle.

 

[Llamaguy]

If you're frequently powerless, you're best to just get a generator for $500 off of Craigslist. Probably end up about the same as a battery backup and you'd be able to run the entire system easily.