Power supply issue for fresh and salt water tanks

[[email protected]]

Disclaimer - I am posting this question for my wife who is fish tank smart
and computer stupid. I am fairly clueless when it comes to fish tanks. Also,
while my question is regarding both fresh and salt and this group is aimed
primarily at only fresh, I felt that the question was generic enough that I
could post it here. I apologize if I am mistaken.

My wife has a 30-gallon freshwater tank with live plants and an 80-gallon
sal****er tank, non-reef. Both tanks healthy (so she tells me).

Anyway, not to bore anyone, during the summer months we have monsoon storms
that have a nasty tendency to knock out the power. The freshwater has
handled this OK in the past, but she is concerned about the sal****er tank
(which is new) and, although it has handled it OK in the past, she does
stress about the freshwater tank.

Does anyone have any suggestions regarding a backup power supply for these
tanks for those times when the power goes off?

My wife has already suggested a generator, but I am not putting a generator
in the middle of the living room, not very feng shui :-) I am looking for
something that can be hidden in the cabinet or something along those lines.

If you can help you can reach me here or e-mail me directly at
.

Thank-you all.

[carlrs]

On May 31, 6:41 am, wrote:
> Disclaimer - I am posting this question for my wife who is fish tank smart
> and computer stupid. I am fairly clueless when it comes to fish tanks. Also,
> while my question is regarding both fresh and salt and this group is aimed
> primarily at only fresh, I felt that the question was generic enough that I
> could post it here. I apologize if I am mistaken.
>
> My wife has a 30-gallon freshwater tank with live plants and an 80-gallon
> sal****er tank, non-reef. Both tanks healthy (so she tells me).
>
> Anyway, not to bore anyone, during the summer months we have monsoon storms
> that have a nasty tendency to knock out the power. The freshwater has
> handled this OK in the past, but she is concerned about the sal****er tank
> (which is new) and, although it has handled it OK in the past, she does
> stress about the freshwater tank.
>
> Does anyone have any suggestions regarding a backup power supply for these
> tanks for those times when the power goes off?
>
> My wife has already suggested a generator, but I am not putting a generator
> in the middle of the living room, not very feng shui :-) I am looking for
> something that can be hidden in the cabinet or something along those lines.
>
> If you can help you can reach me here or e-mail me directly at
> .
>
> Thank-you all.

There are few options options you can use.

*Azoo makes a heavy duty air pump (runs several devices) that runs on
normal 120 V AC, then switches to a built in battery when power fails
for 9- 12 hours.

* I personally used a few inverters, each contected to deep cycle 12 V
batteries to run our aquariums and electronics in our LFS in LA during
the many rolling black outs we had a few years back. A 400 Watt
modified sine wave or pure sine inverter works well.

* You can purchase a relay (from an electronics store such as Radio
Shack) that you place in your contol line for your Inverter that
closes (making a circuit) when power fails thus automatically swithing
on battery power

* There are also cheap little 'D' battery pumps that can run one small
air pumps

Carl
http://aquarium-info.blogspot.com/

[Larry Blanchard]

wrote:
>
> Anyway, not to bore anyone, during the summer months we have monsoon storms
> that have a nasty tendency to knock out the power. The freshwater has
> handled this OK in the past, but she is concerned about the sal****er tank
> (which is new) and, although it has handled it OK in the past, she does
> stress about the freshwater tank.
>
> Does anyone have any suggestions regarding a backup power supply for these
> tanks for those times when the power goes off?
>

You might consider a UPS if your power outages are fairly short. Most of the
small ones die after an hour or so, but s larger one might work longer -
you'd have to do some research.

--
It's turtles, all the way down

[[email protected]]

Thank you both for the suggestions and I will pass them along to the mrs.

We had considered a UPS as I have them on my computers, but we were having
trouble locating one the would suit her needs (could be we were looking in
the wrong place).

I checked out the Azoo and that may be the solution. She'll have to look at
it, though.

Thank-you both!!!!!