power backup

[bryalk1]

i live in central florida the lightening capital of the world. i am finishing setting up a fish room with 15 tanks plus some grow out tanks in the future. are there any suggestions for alternate power in the brownouts that are so frequent which are cost effective. thanks ???

[Ardan]

Hi,
With 15 tanks and all the money invested there it may pay to invest in a backup generator. Small ones that you have to manually operate (turn on and plug things in) are only a couple hundred dollars. Larger automatic start ones are around 1000 dollars or more depending on size, plus installation.

hth

[afick1975]

I agree w/ Ardan.

Andre

[jeep]

Add up all the watts in constant use, such as heaters, air pumps, lights, fridge etc... and that wil tell you what size generator to get.

If you have 15 tanks with 250 watt heaters only then you need at least 3,750 "running" watts. Things such as refridgerators have "surge watts" which must be added to the total wattage in addition to the running watts.

Unless you can consolidate electrical use during an outage then you'll be needing a pretty big generator in the $1000+ range.

I'd insulate all tanks to minimize heat loss, put in a central linear air pump with sponge filters and stick it on a backup battery system. In a power failure the heat from the tanks will keep them warm enough for hours. The air pump will keep your tanks filtered. There's no need to keep lights going or heaters. At least not for <12 hour power failures. Give John a call at Jehmco and he can give more details. http://www.jehmco.com