Close Call with a Battery Backup

I wanted to share this just in case it helps prompts someone to go check how they have everything plugged in.

Came home yesterday to a dark tank and a with everything shut down and the UPS (battery backup) unit beeping like crazy. This could have been a huge disaster - so I'm lucky.

I run an APEX with two energy bars and a Battery Backup that provides a few UPS (Battery Backed up) plugs as well as "Surge Only" plugs. When I set this tank up in the summer, I must have mistakenly plugged both energy bars into plugs on the UPS side of the battery backup. One of them should have been on a "Surge Only" plug.

The first power bar runs/controls the skimmer, return pump, 2 MP40s, cooling fans and a few smaller items. This bar is plugged into a UPS plug and provides about 15-25 minutes of backup power. Enough to ride out the typical (but rare) outage we have around here.

The second strip powers/controls the 2 x 75w heaters along with 2 x 160w razors and host of other smaller items such as fuge lights, etc... This one should have been on a "Surge Only" plug. Instead, it was plugged into a UPS plug as well and drawing it's power through the UPS's battery

When the heaters kicked in yesterday during the day, while the lights where on, it overloaded the battery backup. It must have popped a fuse in the UPS and maybe even burnt the circuits inside, because non of the UPS plugs work anymore and the whole thing sort of smells like chlorine.

Just a word of advise - if you use a Battery Backup and you haven't checked lately, go make sure you are not overloading it.