Hi,
I'm new. I just inherited a 20H tank and Hagen filter from a friend. He bought another hood and a 55 gallon tank. In the 20H was a 100 watt heater. This has now been augmented by and additional 100 watt heater. The new filter is a Tetra Whisper 60 power filter. The filter and one heater are on a UPS, the battery backup for computers. Last week it felt like late April here, not late May. My friend didn't put his heat back on, but the house stayed 65° all day. The tank was unplugged with a temperature of 78°. The UPS kicked in and the filter never skipped a beat. The heater took about 15 minutes before it needed to kick in, as they both had been on just before the plug was pulled. The single 100 watt kept the water at 77-78° for over one hour, before the 300 VA battery ran out. Oddly it was not on all the time as we expected.
Both 100 heaters would have blown the battery, which is rated at 150 watts. He waited an half (with the filter plugged in) to see how much further it would drift down, about 2° to 75° which certainly isn't terrible news for the fish.
For $30 this battery provides 60 minutes of life sustaining electricity. If the room temp was greater, I'm sure the drop would have been less and the battery might have had more life. It's thunderstorm season, I think I'll get one for my new tank!
Anybody else use a UPS on their tank? We tend to lose power for 30-90 minutes at least once a year, sometimes longer. Then when the whole grid came down back in 2003... we were lucky, only out about 12 hours. Others were 2-3 days...
I'm new. I just inherited a 20H tank and Hagen filter from a friend. He bought another hood and a 55 gallon tank. In the 20H was a 100 watt heater. This has now been augmented by and additional 100 watt heater. The new filter is a Tetra Whisper 60 power filter. The filter and one heater are on a UPS, the battery backup for computers. Last week it felt like late April here, not late May. My friend didn't put his heat back on, but the house stayed 65° all day. The tank was unplugged with a temperature of 78°. The UPS kicked in and the filter never skipped a beat. The heater took about 15 minutes before it needed to kick in, as they both had been on just before the plug was pulled. The single 100 watt kept the water at 77-78° for over one hour, before the 300 VA battery ran out. Oddly it was not on all the time as we expected.
Both 100 heaters would have blown the battery, which is rated at 150 watts. He waited an half (with the filter plugged in) to see how much further it would drift down, about 2° to 75° which certainly isn't terrible news for the fish.
For $30 this battery provides 60 minutes of life sustaining electricity. If the room temp was greater, I'm sure the drop would have been less and the battery might have had more life. It's thunderstorm season, I think I'll get one for my new tank!
Anybody else use a UPS on their tank? We tend to lose power for 30-90 minutes at least once a year, sometimes longer. Then when the whole grid came down back in 2003... we were lucky, only out about 12 hours. Others were 2-3 days...
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