alternative energy

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bagedtaco

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has anyone look into this for your large tanks?


either solar panels or wind turbans??

i was watching the Discovery channel last night and they had something on about how to build your own wind turban generator. got me thinking and wanted to know if anyone is doing something like this or not.

i looked at a few setups for solar, but at $12k for a 1.7kwt setup thats not gonna do much for the cost.

we get about 300 days out of the year of clear sunny days and have one of the most consistant wind forces of any city. So much so that we really should be call the windy city not chicago.

anyone have and thoughts or ideas about this?

my usage last month was about 1400kwts and my average is about 1650kwts per month. i'd like to get that down to about 1100kwts or so by some other energy source.
 
lol i live in Los Angeles.. no way will i ever put up a wind turban..lol you have to be in the boon docks for that..

solar is the only way to go....
 
I looked into solar, but the costs are astronomical! I found the same stuff as you did, and that doesn't help much. there were smaller setups that you could use to run certain equipment, but the cost ration didn't make much sense.

if anybody does find something, i would be very interested also.
 
The economy is not there yet. I looked into it before buying my current house. I have solar panels (water) for my pool, but photovotalic cells just aren't worth the cost (yet)
 
Couldn't Resist....

Couldn't Resist....

<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=7215604#post7215604 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by bagedtaco
has anyone look into this for your large tanks?

either solar panels or wind turbans??
...
Click to expand...

Wind turbans sound sweet. They must be a lot smaller than wind turbines.

wind_turban.JPG
 
I looked into it. I could eliminate my electrical bills and get some back at about 40k. The thing is at that price I could do A LOT of remodeling and I'm not gonna get that much back in value. On the other hand it goes onto the southern facing roof and if I get really lucky they'll be really bright and blind my neighbor to the south....
 
If you live by a small harnessable stream or spring or somewere windy it is cheap and practical, Solar is just now nearing a point were its practical somewere svery sunny with high electric prices and tax breaks.

Edit: Solotubes are extremely practical if your tank is by a southern wall or on the top floor with a southers facing or flat roof above it, we can't light our tanks with sun because they heat up too quickly but Solotubes transfer fewer infrareds and as a result are cooler.
 
Opcn, I just noticed that you missspelled "really" in your signature.

And I wasn't planning to put one over a 30g tank, but I will be upgrading to a fairly large tank (hopefully 500gal.) in like, 10 years. LOL. I plan for to long.
 
Did your setup-estimates consider the installation cost? (ie was it a company willing to install for you?) if it was you can go the DIY route and probably chop that number in half easily.

The expense of solar panels though seems to throw most off, but the reality is that it's an investment, what are you investing in? Whether or not the cost of electricity is going to go up. When buy back periods are calculated (whether it be solar, wind, hybrid cars, homemade cupcakes) they typically make a really wrong assumption and assume power/gas/cupcakes costs are going to remain constant, which history should show you is just not going to happen (past 8 years the average price of gas has more than doubled, and that's including inflation!) now you can't really compare the buy-back time of a hybrid back in 1998 using 1998 numbers now can you? Same for solar.

Now all that rambling asside, whether you spend 12 grand on solar panels today or not, if your tank has more of a draw than the output of the solar panels you plan on getting, you'll be buying atleast 12 grand worth of electricity anyways. Now either give it to the electric company where after 12 grand you have nothing to show for it except a fish tank that's hopefully still alive :), or pay 12 grand for a solar panel setup, in which case you'll still have solar panels producing power after 12 grand worth of electricity is used up.
 
sfsuphysics, that is a really good way to put it. The only problem is that I can't think of many people who have 12 grand to go and spend, and the kind of wife who will respond in an understanding way. I can imagine "Honey, why does our balance book say -12 grand?" "Well, I wanted some solar panels, so I bought them." "You spent 12 grand on solar panels!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!"

You make up the end, but I don't have to worry about that, since I don't have 12 grand to spend :)

Vishy
 
yeah, that is a minor inconvience there ;) But depending upon how big your tank is going to be 12 grand might not be much :D Of course I just plunked down 26 grand on a new car, but hey not every one has that level of resources.

My advice, think about your level of DIY, run some numbers from various sites about cost of panels + inverter (don't forget that pricy bit of equipment!) + metal work for framing the sucker, and see where that leaves you. Then calculate how large of a tank you'll want, calculate all sorts of electrical needs (how many lights, pumps, skimmer, chiller[I do see texas up there!], etc) and calculate how much electricity it'll cost today. If that's too much money to save, then stick with your 20gallon tank ;). See how many months (years) it'll take to save up the cost of the solar panels if instead of buying electricity you saved that money (or more depending upon how loose your income is). Put into a solar only account so the wife doesn't complain when 12 grand is gone one day :)

After that you can re think your need for solar panels, or as I mentioned before.. the investment of such. Not to mention do you get black/brown outs often there? I've heard of all the horror stories of hot areas of the country and airconditioning completely annihilating power for everyone, guess what happens when your multi-thousand dollar large tank loses power on a hot day? (now we explore the issue of losing an investment), with solar panels your tank will still go strong.. or atleast some minimal part to keep it going during the power loss (ie a chiller and some pumps).

btw, I'm not really this much of a solar nut, its just was one of my research topics in grad school so I'm really one to push for it :)
 
On the issue of skylights (still much cheaper than solar, especially if you go DIY) the thing is, while a 200 gallon tank is close to 7 times the size of a 30, chances are you will have 7 times as much in it, which will lead to the same crash only on more live stock, If you go with solatubes I think it would be a good idea to throw another light in there some how to totally screw up the cycle.

BTW, thanks for the spellcheckness
 
My 400 gal will be lit mainly by three Suntunnels. They are already installed. I will supplement only if necessary with some T5s and I will probably add some actinics for color. I will also be saving in other ways. I am selecting livestock with this in mind. I will not be running a chiller with this set up. Corals will be low to medium light requiring unless the lighting is sufficient to maintain others with the proposed plan. I will have an overhead closed loop manifold as suggested by Anthony Calfo, simple and cost efficient. All pumps will have a minimum head loss which also saves energy. All in all I will save on electricity costs by using the natural lighting and keeping the equipment as simple and cost efficient as possible.
 
i've checked into the DIY solar and the cost is still pretty high.
to get the energy i need to run the tank i'm looking at $6k in panels + all the add ons needed to get it to work. I could do it now but i don't want to part with the $ right now. hehe

I'm considering solar panels when i build the next house in a few years.
 
Keep in mind, with sunlight - you will not get the same spectrum as where most corals are found (except lagoon and shallow water species). You will get a larger spectrum of usable light which will cause things like algae blooms. Nothing is ever as easy as it seems...
 
Your still getting 63-67k with natural sunlight, depending on air quality. Algea blooms don't start to become a huge problem till you get to 55k or so. and you get algea with any sort of light you have, just be sure to have the right balance of clean up crew and you deal with it like you would algea in any normal tank.
 
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