Heater or powerhead during outage?

[imac]

I had a power outage last week. The heater and powerhead was attach to UPS, so it was providing power for about 6 hours. However the outage was about 18 hours! Now I am thinking that maybe I should only plug only just the heater or just the powerhead so the UPS can last longer. If you have to choose one heater or powerhead, which one will keep the fish and coral live longer during power outage?

[Dubbin1]

I would use a battery operated air pump with an airstone and then just run the heater off the UPS.

[mott768]

I go with the power heads on my UPS they use less wattage then the heater so I get well over 12 hours of battery with just 2 maxi jets on the UPS. I also have a gas fireplace that we use for heat when the power goes out in the winter, the house quickly heats to 85 with the fireplace and I use glass tops on all my tanks, so I do not worry too much about the heat loss.

[sjm817]

You could use a mag drive pump and have a pump and heater all in one! :D

[mott768]

Ups battery backup's go by wattage, the more wattage you have running off of them the less backup time you will have.

[imac]

bump...

[milhouse74]

I agree with the battery operated airston and the heater on the pUPS.

[bertoni]

I put my powerheads on the UPS and have battery-operated airstones for longer operation. I wasn't convinced the UPS would actually work very long with a heater load, but I haven't tested it.

[RokleM]

It won't last long. Think of it this way, most PH use like 10-20 watt, where many people have 150-300 watt heaters. On a good 1000 UPS, you might get 15 minutes on a heater which won't do you a whole lot of good, where you can get a couple maybe a few hours on a powerhead.

A good sized aquarium, a 300 watt heater may raise the temp 0.2 degrees in 15 minutes...

Look into long term solutions, like a generator or power inverter for your car.

[Fred_J]

Please advise, which UPS to buy? are they all reliable enough or are some considered better than others.

Thanks
Fred

[smcnally]

I've heard from many people that use a UPS that heaters will not work on one. They say the light on them lights up, but they will not produce any heat. I think it has something to do with the frequency of the AC current coming out of the ups when it is being powered by the battery. I don't know how much truth there is to this, but I've heard it from people that are using them, so I tend to believe it is the truth.

[smcnally]

<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=6443632#post6443632 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by Fred_J
Please advise, which UPS to buy? are they all reliable enough or are some considered better than others.

Thanks
Fred
Tripplite makes great UPSs

[grim]

I don't know if this is an option for you, but if you know someone in an IT department of a big company, I'll be they routinely decomission (throw out) huge UPS systems. The usual reason is they need a new battery. Don't order the battery from the UPS manufacturer like they would (part of the problem, the manufacturer charges an incredible amount of money for the batteries), but just find a suitable replacement online.

The worst case scenario is you need to do some soldering. Other than that, you can probably get your hands on a very large UPS for the cost of the replacement batteries.

This is how I got all of my ups systems. I've got one set of batteries out of an old phone system that weighs about 250 lbs. It's always being charged by a solar cell on the roof of my garage. When I need long term battery backup, I'll rig up an inverter to that battery and I can usually get about 40-50w for a good 2-3 days out of it.

Jim

[RokleM]

For many items (including pumps and heaters) to work properly, you need a UPS that has a true sine wave, not a modified sine wave. Almost all cheapo UPS's, power converters, and generators are modified sine wave.

A good example would be APC's Smart UPS line (all true sine).

A good site to hit quick is http://www.refurbups.com/. I have 3 from there with no issues.

I don't claim to be an expert, but spent some time on here researching the same thing. These are the facts as I've been able to find. I would suggest doing some research yourself as well.

[Fred_J]

Thanks for the help.
Fred