anybody use solar power to run there tank

I have a friend who lives in the boonies where there is no power.

His whole house is solar powered, there are banks of panels on his roof, and a closet full of car batteries, at night the house runs off of the batteries and a huge inverter, during the day it runs straight off the panels while charging the batteries.

I know one thing, when they have a bunch of guests over they make sure to cook while the sun is still out :D

Whiskey
 
looks like you add marine batteries and use them for back up at night. butt as for storms i would just go with a bigger unit. but i am no expert but i will being calling them. your are in jersy so you more than likly seen the news about the 70% increase in the eletric bill. when the cap comes of in pa. mine will be a 30% so i started shopping
 
You should run your tank on solar power. In fact, you should run the whole house while your forking out the money. Free energy is awesome. You can even sell extra electricity to you local electric company! I use little solar panels to run my lights fans.
 
you need alot of batterys
considering 1 100 $ marine battery is only 100 amp hours ( 1 amp for 100 hours or 100 amps for 1 hour) at 12 volts.... see how that is kinda a problom lol

also solar only puts out the raterd wattage at i think 78.. or was it 90... anyways i forget.. but its lower then the temp of the black panals and full direct sun.... good luck
 
Is there a difference between my electric bill's kwh terminology and the site's watt hour terminology? I average 44.5kwh per day according to my usage history so am trying to figure out what setup would even work for me... assuming someday I can afford it. ;)

I would guess I'd need the 4400 to 5280 watt hours per day version?
 
What would be cool is if I could have the tank's lights dim according to the actual sun using the panels. Ramp up from sunrise and ramp down till sunset. Overcast days would add to the realism. ;)
 
<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=7875967#post7875967 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by reefdood
What would be cool is if I could have the tank's lights dim according to the actual sun using the panels. Ramp up from sunrise and ramp down till sunset. Overcast days would add to the realism. ;)
Click to expand...

Use those fancy skylights, Solartubes I think there called? There are a couple of people doing it.

Whiskey
 
<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=7875982#post7875982 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by Wiskey
Use those fancy skylights, Solartubes I think there called? There are a couple of people doing it.

Whiskey
Click to expand...

Yeah, but the solar panels would be an easier sell to the little lady. I couldn't easily BS her into a solar tube over my tank in the corner.

Now that I think about it, we can't dim MH can we? They need the full wattage I think.
 
<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=7869040#post7869040 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by falcon41176
check out the 2,000 watts of power 330 watt panels. plus this would keep you from losing corals in a power outage.

http://www.partsonsale.com/cabins2.html
Click to expand...

if their specs aren't exaggerated you would need at least 5 of these 330w kits to power the tank in your sig, probbaly a few more since you're not in prime solar country. are you prepared to drop 15K (or much more even) on this? the example tank i ran numbers for would cost 30 bucks a month at 10 cents/kwh. double that even to 60 bucks a month, and it'll still take 20 years to break even. you think the panels/batteries/electronics will last 20 years?

i want to love solar power, but it's just not there yet.
 
Matt, how did I know you would be in on this one :) BTW, Jim seems to be doing so well with solar tubes -- I believe my" Riva Tank" will have some next spring :D
 
Jim seems to be doing so well with solar tubes -- I believe my" Riva Tank" will have some next spring :D
Click to expand...

i would love to be able to do solar tubes (or actually, i want a full greenhouse) but i'm stuck in an apartment for a while. i do have my tank up against big windows that get direct sunlight for most of the day and the corals on the back love it. all my bubbletips walked to the back of rockpile and look as good as if not better than i've ever seen bubbletips look in captivity, with the big super round bubbles with smaller bubbles stacked on top of the big bubbles.

sadly, i'm going to have to paint the back of my replacement tank and keep the shades tightly closed, since i'll probably have to run my lights at night for heat reasons (keep it cool during the day in summer and help heat it at night during the winter) and i don't want a 20 hour photoperiod :).
 
Unless you live someplace where the cost of electricity is upwards of 75 cents per kilowatt hour there are no solar systems (except maybe those home made passive solar heaters) that will pay for itself in 3 years.

Seriously add up your tank's electricity, and then look at the link provided above 1 -110watt panel is a touch over $600, that doesn't count the inverter either. Add up how many watts, find the kilowatt hours you use (or simply look at your last electric bill :)), and see if it would make sense.
 
<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=7875806#post7875806 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by Wiskey
You forgot a 0

At 44.5 Kwh per day, you would need the 44,500W/day version.

Whiskey
Click to expand...
KiloWatt Hours. If you get 6 hours of pure sunlight, you'd need about 7.4 kilowatts of panels. Probably a bit less since you get some morning and evening light. Eitherway that is a fricking lot of money to get that much!
 
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