Already a problem with my Fluval filter on battery backup

I am without power, and have been since early this morning. I invested in a battery backup which I fully charged at work and brought home. I have everything else plugged into it (air pump, lights, heater), and all is working properly, except for my Fluval 206 canister.

When I plug it into the battery backup, there is a constant clicking, and no water coming out of the outflow. I made sure that it was fully primed, but something is up, and I'm not getting any answer from my user manual, and the Hagen customer service department has already closed for the day.

Trying to research on my phone, but checking in here in case anyone has any ideas.

 

Try unplugging every thing and only running the filter

 

Sounds like maybe all the other equipment is using up all the power and not leaving enough for the filter to run.

 

Did you pour water into the canister when you turned it on?

 

As I had said on your other thread, do not run your t5 lights on the battery. See if that helps anything. How many watts does the filter pull, how many watts are your heaters and how many watts does your air pump use? You need to add all those up, if you're going over what your UPS can support, you'll have issues.

 

I'd first plugged in the Fluval only, and clicking was all that I got.

Then I plugged in other stuff to see if any of it was working, so the lights were just one of the "does this work" tests on the battery. I had everything else running (lights, 2 heaters, air pump) with no problem, so I unplugged it all and plugged back in the Fluval. Clicking only. So I kind of panicked that maybe my filter blew up when the power went off.

And right in the middle of the panic, the lights came back on. (Thank GOD)

So I plugged the filter back in to the main wall outlet, and it came on like a charm.

Now I have to figure out why this battery backup is not powering my filter. It can power a whole computer setup, so why can't it power my little ol' Fluval 206?

 

It may not have enough amperage to move the motor fully.

 

It may not have enough amperage to move the motor fully.

How do I find out what amperage is required? (I'm a dummy about electricity)

 

What UPS do you have?

 

I agree not enough amperage to run it. That's why you hear the clicking.

 

From what I could find on the internet, you're filter is uses 440 watts and pulls 3.7 amps. If you're using the APC 1000VA, that only produces 600 watts. So just by wattage you're coming really close. I could not find anything about the amp output on the APC 1000VA. It should tell you on the back of the UPS though.

 

That doesn't sound quite right. My aquatop CF400 only uses 55 watts.

 

That's what I could find. It's surprisingly hard to find this info.

 

I just checked my Fluval 206 user manual and it says that this model uses 10 watts.

I have never heard this clicking before. I can always fully push in the plug with no startup problems at all.

Weird.