Solar Power?

M

modifieddesign

My two week old daughter doesn't want to sleep so I am up late pondering things. Has anyone ever fully solar powered a reef tank? I think with T5's it wouldn't be that hard, metal halides may be possible but much harder due to wattage. 3 or 4 large panels, 5-10 batteries, all the other crap like converters and bam, it should work. It would obviously be expensive, but for people that drop thousands in their tanks and have even more in coral investments it seems like a few grand in solar could save a lot of damage. No rolling black outs, no power outages, and even though it would take a long time, it would eventually pay you back as you save money on your monthly electric bill. Not to mention you can brag about being green.

I don't claim to know all the technical aspects of it, just a thought, and if it has been done before I would love to know more about it.
 
Payback would be longer that the life of the stock and equipment with current technologies and costs. A nice idea though. I just spent over $1500 on led lights that will pay for themselves in about 3 years.[smilie=hi.gif]
 
With solar energy, its not the panels that get you, its the batteries.

Besides, its roughly a 30 year payback period on most solar installs.
 
Those pay packs are for full household systems though, I've done that much home work back in the day when I was curious about it. But a system just for a reef system should take that long. I'm also into rv/vanning and you can convert one to solar for $1,500-$2,000 and run a mini fridge, tv, dvd, speakers, and a/c full time on just that amount. And that's only 4 batteries. Also it would just be more fun than anything.
 
Have you priced out how much it is to run your tank it is prob less than 100 a year. To actully get your money back you would have to be in the hobby for 10+ years.
 
If you want to be green better off getting solar power to run a electric water heater that would prob be more green
 
My tank is super cheap, I was assuming major tanks would be more, but obviously I don't personally know. Chalk it up to a late night thought that didn't pan out.
 
It is great idea but I think there is some placed where I think you could save more money if want to go solar power
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Top