Backyard Aquaponics
A place to discuss aquaponics

Have to agree dont go with batteries.

One of my projects is dealing with a solar system and a single pump. It was going to cost me about $2000US just to keep a small water pump running all to most of the night. I forget the wattage needed by the pump atm, but the AC to DC conversion is horrible.

DC to AC? Anyway, maybe one could have a DC pump (like folks use on boat bilges) with a relay for power-out situations. But that was another thread......

Why couldn't one run DC straight from panels to inverter whenever power is out (during daylight, of course )? I know it would take some relays to isolate main power from temporary power, but plenty of brains here....

I have a small genset that can only run the pumps, puter and fridge.
The batteries would be for when the power company falls over then all we need
is to power the pumps, puter and fridge... Did I just say that??

My pump is ac so there is a conversion. We could not find a DC pump that will move enough water. (100+ gallons a min.)

On the other hand if you can find one or combine the efforts of a few pumps that are DC then batteries might become useable.

From August 07 - August 08 I used 18,340 kWhrs of electricity. With 1-1/2 hp pool pump running continously during summer months 3 deep freezers, 1 frid,freezer, electric clothes dry etc. (I know not green at all!) Since then I lost meat in one freezer during storm and gave the freezer away, I took the pool down, and I installed all the little cf bulbs in the house. My yearly aveg. if my calc's are right is 2.1kw per hr. If I got 8 hrs of avg sun per day I would need a >6kw solar system

Wow, BRB will be the death of us all

I think I can beat that. Have to dig out the bill, but how many KWH adds up to $6000 in 3 months. I have to enter into contracts with the power company.

I told you that pump was a waste of power.

My monthy avg bill is only $164.00 averaged on 12 months. So Duff you definitly beat me if the cost of power is about the same.

You guys need to live on a farm all power after 7pm til 7am half price not offpeak hot water or anything so guess when we try to run the laser machines, pool wleders etc....Im not sure how much we go through as there are three houses, 1 liveable shed, 1 packing shed with coolstore, 1lg workshop, and our machine room, we have solar hot water here and we pay $300 per quarter for our cut.... talking about solar hot water systems we had a solarhart in rocky and a Dux here If your gonna get one I prefer solarhart in the two years we had it only had to switch it to power twice for about three hours and that was four days without sun...

Our new HWS will be a dux heat pump...
only because tin arse DW won one $4000 saving
As J & A & steve would know, our chip heater could do with some help.
Plus fires in the summer where we are, are a tad dangerous!

This is VERY embarrassing. Our average daily power usage over a 3 month period Aug-Oct 2008 was 75KWH. This was however just after I installed the 2.5KW heat pump for my Tilapia which ran roughly 6 hrs/day. So we probably use 60KWH per day on average.

about 27 KWh per day 3-6 people normally live here. 9ish atm (festive season!)

I like my hot/long showers
but in my defence Im starting to shower every second day haha