Power Cuts?

[chrisnewmanuk]

there is storeis that there may be massive power cuts in scotland due to severe weather conditions, does anyone know the best way to keep my tank heated if there is a major power cut?

thanks in advance

scott

***DO NOT DO THIS UNLESS YOU KNOW WHAT YOU ARE DOING***

Yes, get a UPS for a computer (fancy battery that will last ages on a fish tank - about £40 from dabs.com) and:

1. Get an extension cable (normal one, not surge protected)
2. Get the cable that comes with the UPS and grab its "female" end - cut it off and expose the wires
3. Open the Extension cable and remove the cable completly - wire the cable you cut into the extension cable correctly
4. Screw the extension cable back together
5. Voila - an extension cable with an end for the UPS

Plug the UPS into the mains, the extension into the UPS and add one plug at a time to the extension lead (that is plugged into the UPS) to check the loading (most UPS's have a load indicator) - do not exceed the maximum load stated by the manufacturer.

***DO NOT DO THIS UNLESS YOU KNOW WHAT YOU ARE DOING***

 

[Ptarmigan]

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[annka5]

.... Depends where he is in Scotland really... 4000 homes isn't a huge percentage after all.

 

[chrisnewmanuk]

All very interesting.
I did not realise that UPSs were as cheap as that now, certainly well worth considering.

What kind of batteries do they use ? The type of battery that one could take for a ride in the car to charge up( or a rev-up in the carpark if one is snowbound ) ?

Even if it was a prolonged power cut one could use the UPS to at least keep the filter alive even if for the heating of the tank we had to use gas
(or whatever,, parafin stoves, or trivets in the coal fire with a cast iron stockpot hands up who remembers those !! )

I wonder if Scott is still with us ? cos I saw on the lunchtime news that 4000 homes in Scotland were without lectric

The UPS is pemanently plugged into the mains, with your extension into it - this way, the UPS is always cahrged and ready to roll whenever it all goes awry. Dont know what type of battery it is, but it is sealed and when it dies you ring up the UPS company and they send a new one to you (sometimes FOC!)

 

[Ptarmigan]

.

 

[chrisnewmanuk]

I see what you're getting at and I dont know is the short answer

A UPS battery, from flat, takes about 2 hours to fully charge to give a computer about 10-15 mins of running time before it runs out (assuming 400va and an average 400w for the computer + whatever your screen uses). So, if you charged it somehow (no idea how) in a car, you'd drive round for ages charging it with nothing on the fish tank? (unless you have another ups..!). I dont know whether the ups would charge properly Looking at my ups, it says it takes 230v and draws 2.1Amps as its Input (AC)

I dont think you're suggesting this but i'll say it anyway... I wouldnt run the UPS for the computer as normal and then switch it over to the tanks in a power outage because a computer (to safely shutdown, which is the point of a ups on a computer as you know) can take a fair few minutes by the time youve saved everything etc. In this time, the ups charge will have dropped a fair bit and the tanks then get less time alive

If you are worried about consistent prolonged outages, this is definately something to take up with the elec company - see if you can get anything out of them... like a generator... esp. if you live out in the sticks! There may even be special Govt schemes/grants etc. I live in a heavily populated city residential area so there is a very good chance that the mains will never be off for more than 36 hours - if its more than that, it generally means something big has happened and I'd have to move into temp. accomodation anyway

There's only so far you can really go with keeping things running - its like making backups of backups of backups and having a million and one backup data sets etc.... how far do you go? Well, as far as is appropriate to the risk is my answer to that. There will be a point, no matter how attached we all are to our fish, that they dont become important enough to protect and we generally wont know what that it until we come across it.

Personally, however, I would run the UPS on the tank 24/7 and when the mains goes off and the battery runs out, I'd have to accept that I would probably loose fish At least in a big tank its less (relatively) of a problem than in a small tank as itll keep its heat better and hold its water chemistry better - Id chuck the filter media in the tank though - giving them as much of a chance as possible.

 

[Rooster]

Heat water on ANY source, and pour into a plastic pop bottle, then float this in tank ! lasts for hours - probably longer than any powercut.

You could use a UPS, but how many power cuts do you get ? They tend to need new batteries every year or two which can get expensive...

 

[Ptarmigan]

.

 

[annka5]

... absolutely no problems at all thanks!