Idea? underwater solar equipment

[silencio530]

anyone ever thought i mean if we have extremeley well lighting that how come they havent made any equipment to work with our lighting that almost resembles real lighting?.example solarpower koralias or heaters or other things in our display tank
and if they have i have never seen them in other reef tanks
just a thought

 

[kane4fire]

Because solar power is over hyped by the green fad. You would need panels the size of your fish tank just to power a koralia.

 

[oceansidefish]

Actually its more like the salt water would destroy the panels.You actually could run a Koralia on a smallish panel, say the size of the powerhead itself. But its the saltwater itself in the end that ruins that idea

 

[natclanwy]

I do alot of work with solar panels and they really aren't viable source of energy at this point, they work great for supplementing your current power consumption though. They have come a long way in the last decade or so but they still have a ways to go before they are effiecient enough to meet the needs of most households. It would take a panel that was over 1 sq. foot to power a single K4 powerhead and that would only power it during the day and would not have the reserve for cloudy days and such.
As far as using our lights to power a solar cell they just don't have enough power to effiecently charge a solar cell the sun outputs way more energy than any lighting system.

 

[oceansidefish]

Very true. Current solar technology is extremely inefficiant if not completely unreliable. A school district that is a client of ours installed solar panels on several of there schools a few years ago. There were massive problems from the get go that involved everything to batteries that fail to the cells being to dirty from the constant moisture on them. The district found them to be a complete waste of money and isn't going to install any more.

 

[harlequin]

Hmm as to the tank question, very true. A halide would not provide enough power to power one. As to personal use on your homes, thats a different story.
You can actually with enough investment(I did not say they were cheap at all) put on your home depending on your location enough solar panels to power your home and sell power off to the grid and they have to buy it from you. I have noticed here in FL several gas station awnings with their flat roofs completely covered in solar panels for this reason. I also requires your house roof be facing the right direction. Eventually with energy credits they will pay themselves off. This stuff is not cheap however, and you still have night time issues. There are a couple websites out there that tell what regions of the country get what degree of solar energy. Obviously the best place to live if I remember right is the Arizona, NM, SW Texas region, followed by Southern Fl.
Next time you are at a Seafood Resturaunt, ask for grilled Atlantic lionfish. Lets get this badboy on the menu.

 

[oceansidefish]

Currently however the payback on solar panels is about 20 years. A little steep particularly for most commercial properties. Most commercial buildings can save more money and get a faster payback on installing things like VFD drives on AHU fans and chillers and installing more efficiant lighting and occupancy sensors.

 

[harlequin]

Oh definately. The price is still extremely high. We are talking a standard house setup being something like 30k installed and thats with 2 or 3 large panels and the conveerters and batts to use properly. If you arent in one of the lucky sunshine states then you are kind of SOL unless you are in it for the very long term.
That said, I have read many reports out of Europe from places like Germany where this technology is more common and for some reason cheaper and people sell back to the power company quite often. Why they have a lead on us on consumer grade solar panels is beyond me, probably the same way they had T-5 lighting long before us as well.

 

[oceansidefish]

There is alot of promising research going on in Europe. Especially in the countries where the government does most of the power generating as oppose to us here where the monopoly of the power companies will probably always hinder the energy production by individual consumers.

 

[natclanwy]

I think if you do some looking the average german household does not have near the energy requirement as the average american household. Which makes solar energy a little more feasable. There are several houses here in Wyoming that run solely on Solar energy but they are very basic. They are built with very few lighting fixtures and utilize large windows for 90% of the lighting, and they use gas appliances. As far as electric appliances the ones that I have been in don't have much, a washer, dryer, refrigerator, and a small TV. A friend of the family owns one of these houses and it was about 15k for the solar system and he installed it himself. It has been great for him but he has had his share of headaches especially in the winter mainly from failed batteries and snow covering the panels. He isn't tied into the grid though because at the time there wasn't a power pole within 30 miles of his house, but it was much cheaper to install the solar system than it was to pay to have a power line ran to his house.

 

[breiwa1]

Laughable.
First of all you would need to mount the sun above the tank if you wanted the panel to be the size of a power head or you would need a panel the size of a dodge. Plus if you were running a light capable of making any power at all you would be drawing 1000's of watts, why you care about 8 more watts to power the pump.
When I was a kid I wondered why you couldn't recharge a flashlight by pointing it at a solar panel routed back to the battery.
Here is a better plan, since much of energy is lost in conversion for example gas or coal to make electric power transmission to your home, etc. You need to cut out the middle man my friend. Why not just run your whole tank on coal fired steam power? All you would need is a steam generator a a small power conversion plant. Or better yet you could route a river though you basement and have a smaller "carbon footprint". A paddle wheel would be a great conversation piece.

Originally Posted by Oceansidefish
http:///forum/post/2892447
Actually its more like the salt water would destroy the panels.You actually could run a Koralia on a smallish panel, say the size of the powerhead itself. But its the saltwater itself in the end that ruins that idea