UPS

[hplam6666]

I am glad I am a member of SRC. No regrets at all, especially when you guys are so very helpful and spontaneous with your advice and views!! Within just a couple of days I am definitely much more enriched, on a concern which I had spent many months trying to figure out but ended up none the wiser. Thanks!!

Now I know that UPS can be used for fish tank equipment. I am better aware of the pros and cons of all different measures to safeguard our beloved fish and corals during a power failure. It is true that it all depends on ones priorities and the premium that one is prepared to pay. It's now for me to decide on what I really want.

I am also trying not to have too much bubbles in my reef tank. That's why, after acquiring the AC/DC airp pump I have not used it yet. Being a novice, I am still wondering if using streams.... is sufficient to keep the fish and corals alive during a power outage.

[roidan]

if u see how a stream works in your tank, you will notice that the broad cone of water movement generated does indeed translate alot of water over corals and stuff.....

whereas you will need quite a number of air stones/pumps to create a similar kind of turbulence in the water column if the tank is large whereby only areas immediate to the airstones have movement whereas areas further away remain very much still and undisturbed by what the air bubbles can do.

in fact just by my ts7 only (7000l/hr max) i see movement induced by it at the other end of the tank easily. definitely more than movement from airstone bubbles placed at where the stream is....or putting the airstone in the middle of tank....(yes, i have used DC/AC airpump before also and i can see the obvious difference when it comes to surface/water column turbulence )

if you are talking about a 2-3ft tank, maybe the turbulence from airstone bubbles is enough to create movement in the water column as well as water surface...but when u come to tanks of 4-6ft.....even if u place the airstone directly in the middle of the tank...u will notice that surface and water column turbulence towards both ends of the tank will be very weak.

but all in all, i would still advocate using DC/AC airpumps for emergency, than nothing at all

[roidan]

the beauty of UPS is that it takes over, providing power automatically when the normal household power fails for one reason to another....

if u want to take it much further.....is to use a pure sine wave inverter that converts, say a 12V car battery, to provide power for appliances.....

means say if u clip a 100AH 12V car battery to this inverter, and you draw 50W (agar 0.2A)....ignoring complex calculations, you may be able to extract 500hrs of operation from the fully charged battery alone....

that's 20days of operation just on batteries alone

but you must be home (taking over part of the UPS job) to unplug those equipment off the house circuit and plug them into this inverter to enjoy continued operation...

and if the battery runs out of juice before 20 days, u can always go to your car to use yet another car battery

[SST Tang]

My experienced today,

received a notice from Pasir Town Concil

"Interruption of electricity supply"

Due to Preventive maintenance programme for elect installation

elect supply to your premises will be temporarily shout on 21 Mar 05 from 2pm to 4pm.

This notice was send a week before, lucky wife reminder me,

have taught and show my maid how to shut the valve on the return pipe.

Still feel that no safe, so came home at 1:30, saw the technician at the switch room

do the cleaning up, to confirm with them, power will shut from 2pm but the most it only about an hour.

Yesterday pickup a battery operate air pump from my bro,

So sit in front the tank, at 2:11pm the light went off,

quickly shut the valuve, cause my sump is rather small, sure overflow.

After that walk to take the digi cam from the car park

saw my neighbour at lower came out to check the switch board outside

so i told him is power failure the whole, he told me he house is flood becos of back flow, also in marine hobby,

the whole shut down last for 35mins.

so everything still go fine.

[SST Tang]

battery operate air pump

[roidan]

ya..normally these kind of so called town council maintenance thingy seldom pass 1hr one....

but like what your neighbour experienced, apparently many does not even allocate excess capacity for backflow in event for power failure....or prevent it via one way valves or siphon holes.