Fishman Posted June 14, 2006 Report Share Posted June 14, 2006 I know it's possible but has anyone tried it? Is it worthwhile? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
suphew Posted June 15, 2006 Report Share Posted June 15, 2006 What would you use it for? Heating? Light? or power? I dont think heating would be any good because of the power you would use to pump the water into solar panels, plus you would have to use some sort of heat converter because the pipes in solar panels are usually copper. I have seen it used for light, mostly on either plant propergation tanks or salt water tanks, where there is very high light requirements. Power could be an option, but I dont think solar power is used very much in general because the cost of the panels is so high and the power output so low the payback period takes years. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Fishman Posted June 15, 2006 Author Report Share Posted June 15, 2006 Yes I was thinking for heating but not directly. If I can get some solar panels, batteries and inverter. I can plug the heaters straight to the inverter. I am just not sure how many solar panels, how big the battery and what output do i need to power up let say 10 heaters or even filters. There are some deep cycled batteries in Trade me at reasonable price. I am not sure about the panels though. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ira Posted June 15, 2006 Report Share Posted June 15, 2006 I wouldn't bother with trying to use sunlight for heating. If it's cold enough to need much heating you probably don't have strong enough sunlight. Better off insulating the tank and the room it's in. Sunlight for lighting the tank though would be good. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
chimera Posted June 15, 2006 Report Share Posted June 15, 2006 Sunlight for lighting the tank though would be good i still disagree with this! too hard to control, overcast days, etc far too hard. much easier to control exact (or near exact) amount of light for tank artificially. many books state this, its not worth the time for these plus many other reasons. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Alan Posted June 15, 2006 Report Share Posted June 15, 2006 Well excuse me for coming in to bat for the solar power. This is definately a great money saver if you are doing a fishroom. In fact it is a terrific money saver. I built a pupose built fish room with 40mm pvc piping thru the concrete floor, through to a circulating pump and to the solar panels. All self contained, the water reaches a very high temperature and of course heats the concrete of the floor, this is like money in the bank cause at night, the heat stored in the concrete heats the room while the sun sleeps. Negligible cost for running a small pump, compared to using a 2000W fan heater in the room. I recommend this method to anyone contemplating building an outside fish room. In fact I see no reason why when a house is being built that this is not incorporated into the concrete floor. Alan 104 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
chimera Posted June 15, 2006 Report Share Posted June 15, 2006 yeah alan you are right to an extent, i was going down the saltwater path again, habit lighting perhaps not as crucial for freshwater, depending on amount of planting. coral, much different story Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Luke* Posted June 15, 2006 Report Share Posted June 15, 2006 Hi Alan, that sounds awesome. Do you have any pics of drawings of how it was set up? Do you mind elaborating? What do you mean exactly by self contained? Were all the tanks connected together via central filter? How does it actually heat the water? (given the various ways mentioned above) Water changes? Good timing I just read an article on heat pumps vs solar heating tonight for hot water cylinders. It suggested solar panels cost around $10 000 and aren't as effective as heat pumps which cost about half that to install, but that was for hot water cylinder heating...I assume it is similar to heating fish tank water. It said you get $4 of normal heating power for every $1. If well insulated you can have a heat pump on a night only meter (runs 11pm-7am only), which usually costs less than half per unit than your usual everyday meter costs per unit reducing costs further. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Faran Posted June 15, 2006 Report Share Posted June 15, 2006 I think Luke has a self-contained fishroom that is fully insulated so that the under-floor heating is warmed by the sun. With a setup like this, you don't even need solar panels, just piping running over reflective material to absorb the radiant heat of the sun, then piped under the flooring to transfer the heat into the room. His water to air ratio in the room is probably balanced so that the room is warmed and that gets transferred to the tanks... and on it goes. Extremely efficient... as long as the sun comes out! O course I could be wrong in all of this, but that's my concept of what he described. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Alan Posted June 15, 2006 Report Share Posted June 15, 2006 Luke said Hi Alan, that sounds awesome. Do you have any pics of drawings of how it was set up? Do you mind elaborating? What do you mean exactly by self contained? Were all the tanks connected together via central filter? How does it actually heat the water? (given the various ways mentioned above) Water changes? No drawings sorry, I knew when I was doing it I should have taken pics. DUH !! Self contained is just that. Through the radiator (floor) in pvc piping, to the pump, up to the solar panels, heated, then back to the piping. It could be controled so that as the water flows cold it turns off then as it warms, it obviously turns on. This could be done by solinoid-switches, which I know zip about. If I find that the system does get too hot, I have made provision to extend the pvc piping to other fishromms for heating. The solar panels were ones that I goy yonks ago as something that might come in handy, those that have paid me a visit, realise that I have a lot of come in handies around the place.. The panels are copper pipe system, run in a black enclosed metal case with glass front. They measure about 120mm square and I have provision to use four of them, but I think that would be over kill. Alan 104 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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