UPS... For tropical fish?

[UTmaniac]

I am consdiering the possibility of installing a UPS for my tropical fish setup, so that if we ever experience a power loss, I can at least keep either a 50W filter or 20W aeration powerhead going for a while in emergency situations.

However, I've yet to find anywhere that tells me what these "VA" ratings actually mean. One Ebay site has a 1200VA for ~£80, so does this mean that to I divide the VA rating by the power output of the connected electrical units to find out how many hours the UPS will keep things going?

So for my 50W filter, 1200/50= ~24 hours?

The tank I'm most concerned about is in the garage, which is suppled with electric from a Blagdon Powersafe kit, connected via an RCD into a three-pin socket in the flat. If the RCD trips for whatever reason, I currently get no audio clue (besides a single quiet click) that anything has happened, which could be fatal if I do not go down to the garage until a few hours later.

Any advice would be much appreciated

 

[UTmaniac]

Many thanks for your input, looks like I need to try and locate a cheapish UPS with a rating of ~2000VA and then find the cash to afford this "piece of mind" kit.

Despite being relatively new to the hobby, I have quite a few uncommon fish...
Opsarius pulchellus (think of them as Myanmar's equivalent to the British trout)
Barilius dogarsinghi & canarensis(?) (both Indian varieties of trout-like fish)
Yellowtail Congo Tetra
Lionhead Cichlids
Humphead Glassfish
Panda Garra
Redline Torpedo Barbs
Synodontis brichardi (a catfish from the Zaire river, like the Lionheads, with evolutionary adaptations to high current)
Golden Wonder Killifish
African Butterfly Fish (which hides in the plant that offers a calm spot from the tank current)

I would be devastated to lose them through oxygen suffercation following a power trip...

 

[UTmaniac]

Thanks for the extra input since I last posted... I know this is rather a bizarre topic for a pc forum, but due to my biggest tank being outside in the garage, its a real worry that if the 3-pin RCD or even the whole flat's electric went down for whatever reason my riverine fish would probably not survive more than 90 minutes before "suffacation" killed them off.

The auto-dialler sounds intresting, but at £133 there is a reasonable possibility I could get an UPS cheaper than that which could keep aeration going for at least several hours, good idea though!

That plug-in RCD looks very similar to the one that came with my Blagdon Powersafe 20m kit, which I managed to get for the "steal" price of ~£95 new on a well known auction site.

Considering I have only been in the hobby for just over six months, I have a fair few unusual fish in the 540l (most are youngsters, hence the large stocking with a Fluval FX5 and Eheim 2078 filters)...
4x Humphead Glassfish (Parambassis pulcinella)
3x Brichard's Catfish (Synodontis brichardi)
2x Lionhead Cichlid (Steatocranus casuarius)
11x Yellowtail Congo Tetra (Alestopetersius caudalis)
3x Panda Garra (Garra flavatra)
3x Indian Red Tail Squirrel Loach (Aborichthys elongatus)
6x Redline Torpedo Barbs (Puntius denisonii)
3x Leopard Bushfish (Ctenopoma acutirostre)
3x Golden Wonder Panchax (Aplocheilus Lineatus)
8x Weather Loach (Misgurnus anguillicaudatus)
3x Barilius dogarsinghi
4x Barilius bakeri (might be canarensis)

[I have four tanks in total and my second largest tank, a Rio240, only has 13 2cm Lionhead Cichlid fry; their mum; plus two Golden Wonder Killi "hatchlings! Will be using divider soon to move some fish out of 540l and in two months time the fry will be sold/given away]

The UPS is all about keeping the oxygen saturation bearable until I would ordinarily be down in the gagrage "visiting" the fish, which is usually just before work and at least once after work. So unless I install a powerhead to replace the Hydor Magnum 8 (I stopped using it after losing two Humpheads, for fear the 12500 litres per hour was too much for a 540l tank, depspite all being river current appreciating fish), the UPS would be keeping a single filter going, rated at ~50W.

Just in case the power outage was prolonged, a power generator from Machine Mart or alike for ~£90 could be on standby, which on the face of it seems fine for one of the filters.

Problems would arise if the power cut lasted a matter of days, as despite these fish being kept at 22C, the water could easily drop to ~15C or less during the winter in an unheated and uninsulated garage.