Vortech Users Be Prepared

[Reef News Verified Sponsor]

Vortech Users Be Prepared....for WINTER storms! Do you own a battery backup?

Without flow, fish and corals begin to die within 4 to 10 hours.
Extreme weather can strike during any season, and we can’t always predict the outcome. In the event of a power outage, is your tank protected? By adding the an EcoTech Marine Battery Backup, your tank’s flow will continue unaltered for up to 60 hours after the power goes out (30 hours for two pumps). Add a second battery backup to double the run time.

The EcoTech Battery Backup can help save your tank in the event of a power outage.

 

[Diesel]

I have three of them for 4 years now, never had to use them.
The house is since 14 months hooked up to a whole house generator, as you never know.
Didn't tell me wife that I just did that for my tank.

 

[gar732]

I had one client with similar problems. Funny how they claim your coral will die within 4hours, but somehow they will survive just fine in a shipping bag for over 24hours.

I think that the coral will survive for some time but the fish won't. A buddy of mine lost quite a few of his fish when his power went out due to lack of oxygen but all his coral were fine. A backup battery saved my reef on 2 separate occasions and I think has been the best addition I could have make to my system. I can't speak of the longevity of the ecotech battery but I though i read somewhere that they are made by a different company now. Maybe ecotech can comment on that, a new backup battery is on my list for my new build.

 

[ssdawood]

But even fish are transported in bags across states. How do they survive ?

 

[Pfisherman]

The problem with our tanks is the sand, the bacteria and and other junk that lives in the sand bed sucks up oxygen very quickly. That stuff aint in the bag friends.

 

[Matthew Kaplan]

Any body know of any back up power for the max spect GYRE ??? I own a coral box back up but it is in storage would it work with the gyre ????

 

[lefkonj]

I actually go a different route. I have an Apex so I can sense when power is lost and control all sorts of things. I then have my system on a pair of UPS (computer style). If power is lost I turn off my lights, chiller, UV, skimmer and 1 return pump. I leave on a return pump and my vortechs. That setup will last me about 60-90 minutes. If its longer than that I have a generator.

 

[hatfielj]

Any body know of any back up power for the max spect GYRE ??? I own a coral box back up but it is in storage would it work with the gyre ????

Yes, icecap makes one. Marine depot carries it

 

[Aquaph8]

Please take other product questions and feedback to the proper forum, this is the Ecotech forum. Thank you

 

[Reduck]

I have one for my MPs and it's saved me from panic a couple times. Once recently while on vacation. We also have a whole house generator for longer term outages. The cost of the battery back up is much cheaper than losing a tank full of corals.
Why chance it?

 

[Newb73]

IMO the Vortech battery back up is a worthy investment. ...EVEN IF you have an ICECAP/Gyre or a UPS/Apex.

I know this thread is about the vortech only but I don't think Ecotech Marine will mind me pointing out that I have both the Apex/UPS and the Gyre/Ice cap but I consider my MP40/Vortech to be the best option possible.

Cases in point, if I screwed up my apex programming the UPS might not do much for the tank. The Icecap Gyre combo gave me the dread blinking red light error from improper restart sequence on one occassion...

...Meanwhile the MP40/Vorrech battery ....just works and it's the part of my system that I depend on to work even if one of my other back ups has an issue.

Lithum Ion batteries do have a shelf life so every 3 years I plan to buy a new one.

You can hook 2x vortech batteries together so by rotating a new one in every 3 years, you'll get 6 years use out of each one while never having less (and usually much more) than the single battery run time.

 

[Mike in CT]

4 to 6 hours is definitely the time frame when fish will start having problems. Thought my tank would be ok going from midnight till the morning when the power went out ( 2 or 3 hours never was a problem), but when I woke up around 6, I had lost half my fish and was lucky enough to have the others survive by simply stirring the water with a spoon.

 

[underwaterdan]

I agree. The battery backup us essential and I wouldn't build my system without it even though I have a generator for long term outages. My only issue is the battery life, it's not in too much of the literature that it really is expected to last 3 years. That said it's a $50 a year insurance policy for your tank. That's costs less than some of our fish and much less than most of our corals!

 

[Newb73]

You are correct. I simply based 3 years on an estimated full discharge 2 or 3 times.....being continually charged doesn't degrade lithium ion as much as it did nickel cadmium but it is still not ideal.

In general however, frequent charging and discharging will shorten the livespan even more as the batteries are rated to lose a certain portion of their life over a specific number of charges.

A cell phone will lose about 20%- 25% of its battery life after about 1 year of daily charges and after 2 years you'll have lost more than 35%. (a cell phone becomes essentially unusable after its lost 40% or more and with the trend towards sealed cases with non-user replaceable batteries......)

I suspect that after 3 years you'll have 50% to 70% of the usable charge time left, meaning your 36hr battery will be reduced to an 18 to 24hr battery. (based on an mP40 not an MP10)

Add a second battery after 3 years and you should jump back to 55 to 60 hrs total life.

Move forward another 3 years and the two batteries combined will probably be good for about 25-30 hours, with the newest battery being good for 18 to 20 hours and the original battery being near end of life being good for about 5 to 8 hours.

That's about when you'd rotate them and continue the cycle.

I am not aware of the specific charge down life span for the ecotech marine model so I'm extrapolating.

They could, conceivably have a computer chip in there to stagger the charging schedule thus extending the life a bit.

Perhaps they will chime in.

 

[that Reef Guy]

Do these come Pre-Charged?

Or do you have to Charge them when you buy them?

 

[Engloid]

It took a 6 hour power outage for me to loose about $600 in fish. It happens quickly. The more bacteria you have (rock, sand, etc), the faster it consumes the oxygen. A couple of my fish jumped out of the water and died. Others stayed in and died. My advice is to have a backup AND plug a timer into it... that way, instead of drain out the battery completely in 3 hours, you have a timer on maybe 30 minutes of each hour and it can help keep your fish alive longer.

 

[shoelaceike]

Yes, icecap makes one. Marine depot carries it

It's crap. It uses a 3.6 MaH battery while Ecotech uses an 18. Also, unless you add their module, it won't decrease the flow to save battert life so you may get like 2 or 3 hours at best as opposed to Ecotech where you can get 40.

I bought it and it was tiny compared to the ecotech so I did some research.

 

[shoelaceike]

Do these come Pre-Charged?

Or do you have to Charge them when you buy them?

You are supposed to charge it.....you actually have to keep it plugged in

 

[shoelaceike]

You are correct. I simply based 3 years on an estimated full discharge 2 or 3 times.....being continually charged doesn't degrade lithium ion as much as it did nickel cadmium but it is still not ideal.

In general however, frequent charging and discharging will shorten the livespan even more as the batteries are rated to lose a certain portion of their life over a specific number of charges.

A cell phone will lose about 20%- 25% of its battery life after about 1 year of daily charges and after 2 years you'll have lost more than 35%. (a cell phone becomes essentially unusable after its lost 40% or more and with the trend towards sealed cases with non-user replaceable batteries......)

I suspect that after 3 years you'll have 50% to 70% of the usable charge time left, meaning your 36hr battery will be reduced to an 18 to 24hr battery. (based on an mP40 not an MP10)

Add a second battery after 3 years and you should jump back to 55 to 60 hrs total life.

Move forward another 3 years and the two batteries combined will probably be good for about 25-30 hours, with the newest battery being good for 18 to 20 hours and the original battery being near end of life being good for about 5 to 8 hours.

That's about when you'd rotate them and continue the cycle.

I am not aware of the specific charge down life span for the ecotech marine model so I'm extrapolating.

They could, conceivably have a computer chip in there to stagger the charging schedule thus extending the life a bit.

Perhaps they will chime in.

The battery is not Lithium ion

 

[jt17]

I left the hobby for a very long time after coming home from a long weekend to discover a thrown breaker, that was shared with an adjacent apartment, had thrown and I lost all of my fish. Some I had for years. I called a friend and said come get the tank I'm done. So when I got the itch again, the first thing I bought was an MP40 and a battery backup.
Im in central Florida which is the lightning capital of the world. Not kidding, of the WORLD. We have at least 2-3 power outages a year and these have saved my tank more than once. The last outage was about 4 months ago and lasted for 10 hours. I have come to rely and trust these backups so much that I slept fine that night with my tank on backup. I did get up once in the middle of the night though to go to the bathroom and had a brief moment of panic when I couldn't hear my mp40s. I had just upgraded to QDs They ran just fine all night long.