This is a little something I wanted to post regarding losing power with aquariums. I live in Maine, so not only do we have plenty of power outages, but we also have some cold temps. I have not hit winter with my tank yet, but I already considered the idea of 3 days without power and frigid temps.
Although we have wood stoves, that will not help the water in my tank. So, I decided to purchase an inverter and a battery so that I could run my tank with no power. I do have a generator, but most times we wont run it unless stuff in the freezer is about to go because it is a retched pain to deal with..
So I did some math and decided to share my project. Most power filters (up to 50 gallons) hardly run 50 watts, if that. I run two, so I am assuming a tops 100 watts. I also have a 200 watt heater, and two light bulbs that run around 15 watts a piece.So a rough estimate would say 330watts, which allows for a pretty small inverter.
So I found myself the Whistler 400watt inverter on Amazon for 25$. I also got my hands on a used but good larger interstate battery (for starts). In my first test run it ran for hours on end with the one battery (given the battery is not quite 100% capacity).
Anyone could go a step further and get a solar panel to charge the battery(s) being used. I wanted to share this because many people do not know about inverters. Now I know if I get some cold blizzardly black-outs, my fish will still be swimming in their oasis!
Although we have wood stoves, that will not help the water in my tank. So, I decided to purchase an inverter and a battery so that I could run my tank with no power. I do have a generator, but most times we wont run it unless stuff in the freezer is about to go because it is a retched pain to deal with..
So I did some math and decided to share my project. Most power filters (up to 50 gallons) hardly run 50 watts, if that. I run two, so I am assuming a tops 100 watts. I also have a 200 watt heater, and two light bulbs that run around 15 watts a piece.So a rough estimate would say 330watts, which allows for a pretty small inverter.
So I found myself the Whistler 400watt inverter on Amazon for 25$. I also got my hands on a used but good larger interstate battery (for starts). In my first test run it ran for hours on end with the one battery (given the battery is not quite 100% capacity).
Anyone could go a step further and get a solar panel to charge the battery(s) being used. I wanted to share this because many people do not know about inverters. Now I know if I get some cold blizzardly black-outs, my fish will still be swimming in their oasis!