Power loss=Lost fish

Respectfully, they (APC home UPS systems) are junk and not much different than the cyberpower, or any other consumer priced and engineered UPS. More often than not, these devices outright FAIL when subjected to modest outage conditions, as most outages produce large transients and brownout conditions for a few to several hundred cycles. The consumer UPS systems have very little portection to guard their own outputs, let alone the downstream devices.
 
I went a little over two full days just aggressively stirring my display about every 45 minutes and didn't lose a single thing.
 
BeanAnimal said:
Respectfully, they (APC home UPS systems) are junk and not much different than the cyberpower, or any other consumer priced and engineered UPS. More often than not, these devices outright FAIL when subjected to modest outage conditions, as most outages produce large transients and brownout conditions for a few to several hundred cycles. The consumer UPS systems have very little portection to guard their own outputs, let alone the downstream devices.
Click to expand...

Interesting. So far my APC has done a fine job at keeping my systems from being bounced up and down during a transition from utility power to my generator. The particular UPS I have on my display lights, vortechs and apex has been in operation for three years on various home computers and other devices before being delegated to the aquarium. Has not failed yet.

If what you say is in fact true I suspect you would probably want to look into a more robust solution if you are going to rely on the UPS to carry you through the outage. In my case there is no adverse effect if the UPS fails other than the power goes off for a few moments until the generator kicks on so I believe it's the most cost effective measure when used as a bridge between utility and generator.

At one point I had a power problem in the house. The ground cable at the peak of the roof where it attached to the utility cable had a failure in the crimp connector. This caused momentary and random surges in power throughout the house as the wire expanded and contracted in changing temperatures or wind. It also caused "shiny" insulation spots where the feeder cables connected to the 200 Amp breaker in my panel. This was a sign of overheating and I had to get an electrician in to replace the entire service feed. I tell you this because the UPS, which at the time was connected to my big desktop computer, was very effective at keeping the computer insulated from those surges. In fact, besides the lights going bright for a few seconds, the only way I knew what was happening in real time was to review the APC logs and actually record the voltage surges. The UPS always kicked in and protected the equipment during these surges. I used the UPS documentation to show the utility company when they came out in response to my complaint. They were easily able to correct the problem.

Can you elaborate on your reasoning for calling them "junk". I am capable of understanding very technical details well beyond UPS systems and think personally that they are built pretty well or at least I thought they were.
 
There really is no need to get into a lot of technical detail.


I am glad to hear that your lifted neutral did not cause extensive damage or injury.

To be clear, I am not picking on "APC", as the same logic applies across the board.
The "consumer" UPS systems have very little output protection, as they are bare minimum designs that are engineered to be inexpensive consumer products with a high profit margin. That is, the circuit topology is not very robust. This includes output protection, battery management, voltage regulation, etc.

I own an IT consulting company and more often than not, have to replace failed "consumer" UPS systems that my customers buy against our advice. The failures are very common and usually occur long before the battery is due to be replaced for the first time.

In most cases, the UPS systems are moderatly loaded but below the manufacturers maximum or recommended specification. That is, the more the UPS is loaded, the more it appears prone to failure. Of course this makes sense when the circuit topolgy is considered. The UPS has little means of protecting itself and when put in a high stress situation with a moderate load, the design tolerances are pushed to the limit and something fails.

Don't get me wrong, I am not advising that you go out and by a $600 UPS for your desktop PC. But at the same time, that 900VA desktop UPS and its 900VA comemrcial cousin have very little in common. One will happily chug along at 900VA in the worst of conditions, the other will scream and die.

There is a very good reason that a 900VA commercial units costs $600 and a 900VA consumer unit costs $99 on sale.
 
BeanAnimal is correct. There is no really good cheap solution. Best cheap solution is probably battery operated air pumps with an air stone. But if you want to go further with greater surety a natural gas powered generator is probably the best. Expensive but sure.
 
cougaran said:
I appreciate all the responses and am going to have to do a little research. If the inexpensive ones are able to run an aquarium then its well worth the investment, especially with all the livestock I plan on getting..On the upside if the power goes out I can also run some other stuff... I'll have to just figure exactly how much I want to spend on one to do the job....
Click to expand...
If you have to run your generator on LP gas make sure you do not over size it as it will use a great amount of LP gas ,nat gas cost much less to run.
 
That is the problem I have... LP gas only. The natural gas lines end a bit up the street from me... doesn't quite reach the house (dammit). So LP, gasoline or diesel are my only options.

I have a tiny (30gal) tank at the moment. Just relying on a pair of B11 airpumps and airstones. The tank is in the living room where I have a wood stove that easily kicks the house up to 80-90 degrees in winter if there is a power outage. So heat hasn't been an issue either.

This year I just put in a finished basement man-cave room. I have a 6' tank going in down there soon. Going forward, power is going to be a real concern. While working on the house, I had the electrician install a manual switch and an outlet on the back of the house for a generator. I hope to pick up a ~6kw generator sometime this summer to keep on hand. I may try to find a multi-fuel unit. So I can run it either off LP or gasoline. If not that, I'll probably look into a diesel.

I may rig a DIY marine battery backup with inverter as an interim standby. Still deciding on that one... but again, a few B11's and airstones do a great job to keep things aerated and moving. Plus they are quite low cost.

Being in the northeast and living away from the city, we are likely to get a power outage 1-2x a year at least. I have been lucky this past year. No outages more than an hour or two. The year before.. ~1+ weeks without power. I didn't have a tank running at that time thank goodness.
 
I like the vortec battery backup, but that is a little too expensive as you have to own a vortec powerhead.. I'm reassessing everything as far as powerloss. The WHATIF question also boils down for me is if im at work and the power goes out. The battery powered airpumps are a great option if im home and able to set them up. It looks like the only real options are $700 vortec option or the 5K gas powered generator for an auto turn on if the power goes out and im at work. I still have some time and have the 90 setup, but these are some very valid points when the 300 is setup, a powerloss with the 300 could be very costly.....
 
You can get an 7kW generac installed for around $2500. It will be big enough for the tank and some stuff in the house. Your not going to run the tank, AC, oven, TVs and toaster at the same time....
 
RGibson said:
If you have to run your generator on LP gas make sure you do not over size it as it will use a great amount of LP gas ,nat gas cost much less to run.
Click to expand...

I have the LP version of the generator and actually in my area LP is not a more expensive option. You will use far less LP compared to NG. I purchased the 20KW generator from Generac.

From the Spec sheet:

The rating is 20KW for LP, and 18KW for natural gas.
The maximum rated continous load for LP is 83.3 and 75 for NG.
At full power the LP version uses 106 and the LP version uses 294 (cu ft/HR), nearly three times more for the NG version.

You will get more bang for the buck using LP and even though in some areas NG is cheaper to use, based on the generator specs it wont in this case be cheaper to use NG.
 
LP produces almost twice the BTUs per CF than NG. In areas with NG supply LP typically costs almost twice as much as NG (not counting the cost/rent of the storage tanks, delivery, etc). In areas supplied by NG, LP is not often a cost effective alternative.

Secondly, while it is rare that a tank gets hit by lightning, I certainly would not want a large LP tank net to my house if I had a choice.

Anyway, to the point that needs to be covered. Select your genset based on your normal expected load, not your maximum load. The genset needs to run in the area it was designed and oversizing is NOT ever a good idea with regard to the health of the engine, field or efficiency.
 
BeanAnimal said:
LP produces almost twice the BTUs per CF than NG. In areas with NG supply LP typically costs almost twice as much as NG (not counting the cost/rent of the storage tanks, delivery, etc). In areas supplied by NG, LP is not often a cost effective alternative.

Secondly, while it is rare that a tank gets hit by lightning, I certainly would not want a large LP tank net to my house if I had a choice.

Anyway, to the point that needs to be covered. Select your genset based on your normal expected load, not your maximum load. The genset needs to run in the area it was designed and oversizing is NOT ever a good idea with regard to the health of the engine, field or efficiency.
Click to expand...

It's been a long time since I remember my physical chemistry class so please forgive the ignorance. Since LP produces twice the BTU's per CF than NG and NG is typically half the cost, can't you consider it a wash? Anyway, in my area natural gas is no bargin.

Point of interest, I own my tank and it's buried in the ground. No pollution issues to be concerned about when burying it. I had to buy my LP from one supplier for 5 years and they gave me the tank with installation for nothing. It's a 1,000 gallon tank. Turns out they are a really good gas supplier and I still get my gas from them 10 years later. Probably one of those really rare moments when I got to take advantage of a really good deal. They stopped this program years ago.
 
nuclearheli said:
It's been a long time since I remember my physical chemistry class so please forgive the ignorance. Since LP produces twice the BTU's per CF than NG and NG is typically half the cost, can't you consider it a wash?
Click to expand...
That was kind of the point :)

In areas that are WELL (no pun) supplied with NG it is (in most cases) cheaper per BTU than LP. Supply and Demand :) In areas with sparse NG supply and a large LP distribution channel it is usually a wash or sometimes a bit less than NG per BTU.


Point of interest, I own my tank and it's buried in the ground. No pollution issues to be concerned about when burying it. I had to buy my LP from one supplier for 5 years and they gave me the tank with installation for nothing. It's a 1,000 gallon tank. Turns out they are a really good gas supplier and I still get my gas from them 10 years later. Probably one of those really rare moments when I got to take advantage of a really good deal. They stopped this program years ago.
Click to expand...
Yup... Why give away stuff for free when they don't have to and can instead earn a profit on a captive. Instead of giving away tanks to NEW customers, they keep existing customers with prices competative to the NG suppliers in the area.
 
I'm a bit turned off by NG right now. I purchased the house in 2001 and it had oil and ELECTRIC :thumbdown. We immediately decided to dump the oil and have the tank removed. We called our NG company in the area and they were happy to come out to the house and survey for a gas line to our home. The bad news came about a week later when they called back, proclaimed they could get NG to the house, no problem, but it would cost me $38,000. Yes, they had the nerve to call me back with that price. Seems that the NG line takes a right turn off of my road about 400 feet to the south, and a left turn off of the road about 1,000 feed to the north. They admitted that they were planning to join the lines for capacity reasons. So they wanted me to pay to provide the NG line between the two mains, or course my neighbors all voted to have me do it.

Needless to say we went with the buried propane deal, removed the underground oil tank and converted everything over to LP, the whole house. We even installed an on-demand water heater which by far was the best investment I have made. So even if they do decide to extend the gas line and offer me a hookup for free, they can stick it where the sun doesn't shine.
 
nuclearheli said:
I'm a bit turned off by NG right now. I purchased the house in 2001 and it had oil and ELECTRIC :thumbdown. We immediately decided to dump the oil and have the tank removed. We called our NG company in the area and they were happy to come out to the house and survey for a gas line to our home. The bad news came about a week later when they called back, proclaimed they could get NG to the house, no problem, but it would cost me $38,000. Yes, they had the nerve to call me back with that price. Seems that the NG line takes a right turn off of my road about 400 feet to the south, and a left turn off of the road about 1,000 feed to the north. They admitted that they were planning to join the lines for capacity reasons. So they wanted me to pay to provide the NG line between the two mains, or course my neighbors all voted to have me do it.

Needless to say we went with the buried propane deal, removed the underground oil tank and converted everything over to LP, the whole house. We even installed an on-demand water heater which by far was the best investment I have made. So even if they do decide to extend the gas line and offer me a hookup for free, they can stick it where the sun doesn't shine.
Click to expand...

i was given a quote like that for electric to my farm. i told them sure ill pay it but no one else can patch into that line unless they pay me back for it. needless to say they never called back.
 
I would look into something like this model

EU1000i(EU1000IKN, EU1000IKC, EU1000iAN, EU1000iAC)
"¢1000 watts, 120V
"¢Ideal for TV, lights, fans, small power tools and more
"¢Super quiet
"¢Less than 29 lbs!!
"¢Fuel efficient - up to 8.3 hrs on 0.6 gal of gas
"¢Inverter - stable power for computers and more

http://www.hondapowerequipment.com/products/modeldetail.aspx?page=modeldetail&section=P2GG&modelname=EU1000i&modelid=EU1000IKN

It's $900 with shipping included.

EU1000IKN_PE_IMG250.jpg


I purchased a Honda 6.5K with an automatic transfer switch because I didn't want to risk it but I was considering this model before. Since I have to travel due to my job if I'm not there I needed a fully automated system but if you can get this I would go with this. It's 8 hours and if your get a separate gas tank you can always keep filling it up.

Let's hope you dont get any more tornado's... I get hurricanes down here in the Caribbean and they are not fun either.

Regards

Jan
 
JanVelazquez said:
I would look into something like this model

EU1000i(EU1000IKN, EU1000IKC, EU1000iAN, EU1000iAC)
"¢1000 watts, 120V
"¢Ideal for TV, lights, fans, small power tools and more
"¢Super quiet
"¢Less than 29 lbs!!
"¢Fuel efficient - up to 8.3 hrs on 0.6 gal of gas
"¢Inverter - stable power for computers and more

http://www.hondapowerequipment.com/products/modeldetail.aspx?page=modeldetail&section=P2GG&modelname=EU1000i&modelid=EU1000IKN

It's $900 with shipping included.

EU1000IKN_PE_IMG250.jpg


I purchased a Honda 6.5K with an automatic transfer switch because I didn't want to risk it but I was considering this model before. Since I have to travel due to my job if I'm not there I needed a fully automated system but if you can get this I would go with this. It's 8 hours and if your get a separate gas tank you can always keep filling it up.

Let's hope you dont get any more tornado's... I get hurricanes down here in the Caribbean and they are not fun either.

Regards

Jan
Click to expand...

honda's are great but for $900 you can get a generator to your freezer, tv, some lights and tank...
 
Now lightning doesn't strike the same place twice, right..<MYTH> Well The Oct 29th snowstorm knocked out power once again for me. This time it was much colder with a few temps dipping into freezing at night and I have been without power for 5 days up until an hour and half ago.

GOOD NEWS: I didnt lose any fish this time around.

How I was able to "Weather" the storm this time around was two fold, hopefully this may help anyone else out there.
1) even though my house dipped into the low 50's and I had no power for 5 days, the tank temp was saved because I luckily hadn't brought my gallon jugs of milk/lemonaid down to the curb for recycling(I forgot). I also luckily had hotwater after getting my natural gas hot water heater working. However, if you heated water on a propane grill OUTSIDE, you could do the same. Those 4 plastic jug containers were floated in the tank at different times and I kept the tank temp around 72 degress doing it this way. The temps dipped to about 65 during my sleeping hours or when I was at work. All my fish seem fine and healthy. I realize those out there with coral tanks that higher temps are probably going to be needed with alot more trips monitoring temps.

2) The first night i used 2 "hurricane category 2"battery power air pumps. I quickly realized that one was sufficient for my 90 gallon fish tank. With higher temps or a larger tank this may not work as well. I had 6 "D" cell batteries which was great up until yesterday when it looked uncertain just when the power was going to be restored. Well guess what trying to find "D" cell batteries are next to impossible..So my advice is have at least 8 to 10.

3) i know i said 2 fold, but this one really helped too. A large readout display with temperature inside the tank and outside the tank made things a heck of alot easier.

I hope some of these tips may help someone with a powerloss... As for a generator, Its looking more and more probable that a gas one is in my future and then I no longer have to worry about power loss.....
 
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