[Samper]

The school has generators, unfortunately they won't be hooked to the new electrical system being installed for this system. The financial secretary told me this morning that she has set aside $600.00 for a battery backup of some sort. I'm guessing that a true sine wave is the way to go due to the way the pumps run. I need a plug and play dependable way to keep heat and water circulation going in case something happens.

What are the makes and models that I should be looking at and why?

[Samper]

I found where some other reefers were using setups like this.

Tripp Lite | Inverters | APS3636VR

[DonW]

Inverters are not an efficient use of a battery. A 12v secondary return pump will net longer life.
The heaters are the real issue, Its going to take alot of batteries to run them for any real period of time on a tank that large.

Don

[canada55]

I would like to expand this topic a little further, in designing a backup battery, gas generator or what ever sytem you choose. My concern is that in an emergency situation that is more than 8 hours (in my case it can be - no power for 3-4 days). What are the bare necessities needed to keep a fully equiped reef tank alive without a major loss of life....heat, chiller, circulation, lights, air pump????......what is the minimum equip?????. What must we keep going and what can we do without until power is on????....when we know this you can make calcuations in designing the idea backup system for your individual system/situation.....

I am still purchasing components for my own backup system to last at the most several hours using the triplite 2012 inveter running off at least 6 x 12v car batteries until I can get home to throw the RELIANCE Controls generator cutover switch and start a gas powered generator that will power the individual emegency circuit installed just for the reef tank this also recharges batteries all at the same time..

http://www.tripplite.com/shared/pdf/spec/tlspec_178.pdf
http://www.reliancecontrols.com/Prod...il.aspx?Q310AE


Some of us have some serious money, time, effort put into these reef systems and I personally feel that having a good "emegency plan" would be a good topic to discuss further...It may sound like over kill to you what I'm doing but it is not uncommon to loose power 2-3 times every month and in the worst situations 3-4 days once a year (I'm in rural Canada, lots of nasty weather here) ....What would you do if your power went out for a day or two?

[120gallons]

For any extended outage a generator is the way to go. I lasted 7 days without power in the middle of the winter with a tank. It will cost under $500 for a generator that can keep most tanks going indefinately as long as you have gas.

[charlie]

would like to expand this topic a little further, in designing a backup battery, gas generator or what ever sytem you choose. My concern is that in an emergency situation that is more than 8 hours (in my case it can be - no power for 3-4 days). What are the bare necessities needed to keep a fully equiped reef tank alive without a major loss of life....heat, chiller, circulation, lights, air pump????......what is the minimum equip?????. What must we keep going and what can we do without until power is on????....when we know this you can make calcuations in designing the idea backup system for your individual system/situation.....

I am still purchasing components for my own backup system to last at the most several hours using the triplite 2012 inveter running off at least 6 x 12v car batteries until I can get home to throw the RELIANCE Controls generator cutover switch and start a gas powered generator that will power the individual emegency circuit installed just for the reef tank this also recharges batteries all at the same time..

http://www.tripplite.com/shared/pdf/spec/tlspec_178.pdf
http://www.reliancecontrols.com/Prod...il.aspx?Q310AE


Some of us have some serious money, time, effort put into these reef systems and I personally feel that having a good "emegency plan" would be a good topic to discuss further...It may sound like over kill to you what I'm doing but it is not uncommon to loose power 2-3 times every month and in the worst situations 3-4 days once a year (I'm in rural Canada, lots of nasty weather here) ....What would you do if your power went out for a day or two?

I am a big fan of the use of a generator. The main thing I think to keep running is your return pump, then at least you still have filtration. The skimmer in my opinion would be optional, but I know my generator will run that and at least 2-3 heaters. As far as lites go, run your actinics, then at least there will be some lite.