APC UPS saved the day ...

[RayD]

Sometime around 1:20 AM this morning the breaker tripped that my tank equipment is plugged into. This morning around 9:00 my daughter says "there's something beeping downstairs, must be something fish."

I go down to find the entire tank shutdown with the exception of my Tunze 6100 and the battery opertated air pump for oxygen. My APC 1500 came through in the clutch and kept the flow going and the air pump kept the oxygen going. The battery lasted over seven hours and I still had two bars left on the unit. Woo Hoo!!

In the interest of saving battery life I never plugged a heater into the 1500 so the temp dropped to 66 degrees (not terribly bad). Time to rethink where I have my DC8 plugged in. I found out that my PC, TV, and other junk is all on the same circut. Time for better distribution.

NO adverse affect on the animals in the reef. PHEW!! I'm still waiting for my generator to come in. It's in transit.

Thanks for listening to me rant.

 

[willray]

that's not a rant.....that's good news sweeet!

 

[Aquadiva]

Nice save, Ray. Glad to hear all the emergency planning saved the tank. What type of UPS do you have??

 

[RayD]

I have the APC 1500 Smart UPS. I'm surprised it lasted as long as it did but there was only a Tunze 6100 (45w) plugged into it.
I thought a 250 or 300w heater would drain the battery too quickly.

http://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/product/127514-REG/APC_SUA1500_Smart_UPS_1500.html

 

[JayM]

sounds like you got an early Christmas present....smart setup with the B11's and the UPS....I've got something close, but I also have the generator in place. The largest fear is the one where even a genny-fed breaker trips, but all but 1 of my circuits (and I use 4 for the 2 tanks) are dedicated to all fish. I have tunzes in each tank on separate circuits, so I would need to see a catastrophic screwup before I lost all circulation.....

BTW, you were right in your thoughts....you will get less than 1 hour of runtime on a SMARTUPS 1500 with a 45W tunze and a 300W heater that is constantly drawing current for heat.