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Battery Operated Filters?

Posted: 31 Aug 2005, 06:17
by Thunder1
Anybody know of any good battery operated filters for my tank? I live in Central Fla and with Hurricane season heating up, I want to be prepared incase of any extended power outages.

Posted: 31 Aug 2005, 06:27
by Fish Soup
I have one of these tied into each gang valves that controls my sponge filters. They produce enough pressure for about 3 or 4 sponges. They run on two D cells. Not sure for how long, but were still going strong after 5 hours the last time I lost power.

http://www.bigalsonline.com/catalog/pro ... 623;pcid2=


Don

Posted: 31 Aug 2005, 13:26
by bronzefry
I have a few of those. There's a much more expensive one from Azoo that you need to keep plugged in all of the time. It has a sentinal battery, like your alarm clock. I didn't buy that one because I don't always keep airstones going. If you always keep airstones going, you may want to buy the $60 Azoo. I find the one Fishsoup shows is just fine. It's worked for me many times. I've used (2)each on a 75 gallon tank and (1) each on 10 gallon tanks. Hagen makes something similar. The Hagen is very noisy. Please make sure you have enough D-batteries in your house. If the power goes out for more than 8 hours, you'll need to change them. :wink: These are also good if you need to keep fish in a bucket for a short period of time.

Posted: 17 Sep 2005, 05:23
by dastrieg
How about a computer battery backup from APC or Belkin that is what i use and the small ones are cheap like 35 bucks they keep a 802 air pump going for a long time

Posted: 17 Sep 2005, 15:12
by bronzefry
A pure UPS(uninterruptible power source) that could support a large tank costs a bit more than $35 American. I'm looking at one now, on my floor for my 15 gallon tank. It only has 2 UPS outlets. The other 6 outlets are power surge. During a power failure, the alarm is so shrill, it wakens the dead and scares the fish. It would most likely cost around $200(plus)American if you wanted one that had all of the outlets on battery back-up. The smaller UPS units are made for you to have time to shut down your computer and not much else, I'm afraid.

Posted: 17 Sep 2005, 20:51
by new2Lnumbers
I have been looking at a lot of posts and a great deal of posts with signatures it would seem to me would have quite a few tanks, I would think the only way to protect all of them if there was a black out that lasted for more than a few hours would be to have a gas powered generator.

Posted: 19 Sep 2005, 13:41
by MatsP
new2Lnumbers wrote:I have been looking at a lot of posts and a great deal of posts with signatures it would seem to me would have quite a few tanks, I would think the only way to protect all of them if there was a black out that lasted for more than a few hours would be to have a gas powered generator.
Petrol powered generators that cope with much more than 1kW gets pricey too... And they aren't exactly quiet, so if you don't live right in the sticks, chances are the neighbours will complain (unless you give them some electrics too).

And if you only use the generator once every other year, you're probably not get it started when you need it, because the petrol has gone stale and the carburettors are gummed up... :-(

UPS is slightly better in this case...

--
Mats

Posted: 19 Sep 2005, 14:29
by bronzefry
I agree 100% with Mats on this one. If you live in an area where the power goes out once a week, it may be a consideration. Where I live, water quality is more of a concern. :wink:

Posted: 20 Sep 2005, 05:02
by new2Lnumbers
If the power was out I would think the last thing someone would complain about would be a little noise from a generator.If you have a lot of time and money in you fish like it seems a lot of you do, I would really not care to much about my neighbors complaining about some noise in a black out!