[Tangs Rule]

I need to purchase one of these. I thought I could pick up one from best buy, but the guy said I'd only get about 30 minutes of battery back up. Does anyone use a good model that will give me at least a few hours of back up?

[MikeyZO]

A few hours? depends. APC probably makes some of the best for computers, and the time they last depends on the load you have plugged in to the battery. I have this model

http://www.bestbuy.com/site/olspage....=1157067061643

This model is nice cuz it gives you a digital readout of the load and your approx run time. I have the sump return pump, heater, and one powerhead and it says I will get approx 40 min off the battery. The better ones that last longer by APC are server rated ones but they cost more. And they are all rated by your wattage. So for instance, mine has a runtime of approx 35 min if I am using 50W of power. Right now I'm at 282W and my runtime dropped to 18 minutes (I suspect my heater kick on, hence the change from 40 to 18). The server based ones are more expensive because they last longer. As per APC's website if you are using 200W, the highest server battery backup they sell will last you about 3 hours but is gonna cost you in the neighborhood of $800-$1200.

You can check it all out yourself at www.apc.com

Albeit confusing, I hope this helps some.

[qy7400]

Need to know what you want to run, UPS run times are load dependent so the more you run the less time you get. APC has a sizing app on their website you can use to get an idea, http://www.apcc.com/tools/ups_selector/index.cfm

[Tangs Rule]

I say 3 hours because I am at work for 12 - 14 hours a day. Sometimes my wife will check on the tank, sometimes she won't. I want to run the heater and powerheads off the back up so the water temp won't drop too low (tank is in my basement) and the power heads so my water stays oxygenated. That would probably be a total of 30 - 35 watts.

[Killerdrgn]

???? how big is your heater? I'm sure your going to be using more watts than that. For 3 hours you might need to buy several units. Or go with one that would be used for a data center but that runs more than $10,000.

[boardryder]

I did a little looking at some and found that for under $200 you can get a good one. How long it lasts all depends on what you are going to run on it. Remember these things are marketed toward computers that use 250-500+W on average.

A small return pump or power head is going to be around 25-50W, and heater 100-300W. There should be a data sheet somewhere. I'm guessing for the price I listed and only running the bare essentials you can get several hours.

Just read the data sheets, and find out the power consumption of the devices you are hooking up

[Chiefmcfuz]

You can't go wrong with an APC product.