Battery Backup: UPS or Inverter and optima battery

[AllSignsPointToFish]

Theoretically, an inverter with a 125Ah battery could have a runtime close to 8 hours. Can you shed anymore load or reduce the load some more (like slow a pump down)?

An inverter with two 80-100 Ah batteries in series would probably cover it. A 1500VA battery won't even come close.

 

[Agamerce]

I might be over calculating heater? 150 watt heater at 81 degrees and only ran intermittently when needed. Plus 5.5 watt powerhead hydor

Eheim 150
Return pump would likely use more than hydor 1350

 

[AllSignsPointToFish]

Where do you live? Maybe you can substitute a smaller heater for emergencies?

You did not miscalculate the wattage. Heaters take a lot of power.

 

[Agamerce]

NC. Tank in game room underground. No windows or doors.

I have a 50 watt for QT. 8 hrs would get me through work hours.

My first calc I would need 4k-5k watts for that time

 

[ReeferMaddness843]

That's the one thing I'm happy with. No need to run a heater. Whew.

 

[AllSignsPointToFish]

NC. Tank in game room underground. No windows or doors.

I have a 50 watt for QT. 8 hrs would get me through work hours.

Okay, but the idea here is to survive the 8 hour outage with no losses, not operate normally. A 50W heater might slow the temperature decline enough to make it through. Do you have an Apex? If you had an idea of heater duty cycle under normal operation, we could get a better estimate of how long a backup system would last.

 

[AllSignsPointToFish]

I have never had a house with a basement. I've also never lived north of I-20. How cold does the basement get during winter?

 

[AllSignsPointToFish]

duplicate post.

 

[Agamerce]

Underground is great and helps reduce costs. Warmer in winter and cooler in summer but its independently controlled by thermostat normally.

I have a controller system. I will have to check.

 

[AllSignsPointToFish]

If the heater only runs a short duty cycle, then it's possible you can do both with a 125Ah battery. Is a portable gasoline inverter a possibility?

 

[AllSignsPointToFish]

The other idea would be to set up the controller to disable the heater upon initial power loss, then only have the heater re-enabled if the temperature falls too low.

 

[Agamerce]

All options are workable. I'll have to work on that solution. All-kats-all a full generac with ats. [emoji4]

Good idea with controller! Didnt think of that.

 

[jasonrusso]

I'm pretty sure VA means volts/amps so that battery is 1500 watt hours. So I guess that you would get MAX 10 hours, but probably 5-6 reliably. I'm not positive about the VA rating.

 

[Bob Escher]

If you have an Apex, you can configure it to sense loss of external power and cut power to nonessential devices.

A large, deep cycle battery with an inverter would run quite some time with your load. What outage duration were you looking to ride through? For shorter outage durations, you could shed the Kessils to extend runtime.

How do you program the Apex to do that or please point me to where the docs are at I didn't know it could be done

 

[Agamerce]

Idk

 

[AllSignsPointToFish]

How do you program the Apex to do that or please point me to where the docs are at I didn't know it could be done

I'm no expert, but you can get the Apex to turn off power to the heater with this command:
If Power Apex Off 000 Then OFF

So, I'm betting you could modify that code something like this:
If Power Apex Off 000 Then OFF
If Temp < XX.X Then ON

Maybe I'm wrong, and I'm certainly no Apex expert. I'd bet there's a way to do it. You may have to use the SET command to get it to work properly.

 

[Kajung2k]

Sorry. My math was wrong (pretty obvious..hahaha).

When I go camping we runs tv and blu ray player that use 400 watts minimum on a 100ah battery and we get over 8 hours straight of continuous usage. So though my math be wrong below the numbers and test data tell me differently.

Carry on....

You are correct. Folks often assume that amps are constant for a given wattage, but that is not the case. This is EXACTLY the reason why a 350W DC inverter comes with wiring and fuses for 30A (30A x 12VDC = 360W).

810W draw on a 12VDC system is quite a substantial load.

 

[AllSignsPointToFish]

Sorry. My math was wrong (pretty obvious..hahaha).

When I go camping we runs tv and blu ray player that use 400 watts minimum on a 100ah battery and we get over 8 hours straight of continuous usage. So though my math be wrong below the numbers and test data tell me differently.

Carry on....

Hey, no problem. I can't add, but I sure can DISTRACT

 

[Hansss]

Hi,

this spring I was away on a dream vacation... untill I got a mail from my neighbours telling me that the power was out in my house and that my tank didn't look good at all. I told them to put the ground circuit (RCD?) back on and then I got a mail from my Apex telling me that it was back online.
During the 20 hours without power I lost all my fish and corals. It was my most complete crash ever. Even the Aiptasia were dead!

Now I've restarted everything and do not want to make the same mistake over again. But I need some advice on how to set things up the right way and I need some purchasing advice as well.

What I want to achieve is that if I have a power outage I want an email at once. I'd like one cirkulation pump (Tunze 6105) and the returnpump (Tunze 1073.50) to run and I'd like to be able to monitor the temp, pH, ORP via my Apex for a few hours.

What I have today is the Apex with 2 x EB6 (EU).

How should I set this up? And what battery backup (UPS?) should I buy? I live in Sweden so it's 240v here. If you could point me directly at a good option to buy I would be very happy. I feel like an idiot when it comes to electricity issues so please just tell what to get.

Best regards

Hans

 

[Kungpaoshizi]

The Apex works off a DC power supply to sense a power outage. You plug the power supply into a non-battery backed outlet. When the power goes out, the Apex can no longer sense the power through it. Then you get your code engagement.