making your own power

[spiff44]

your OP sounds like you're wanting to generate power from the tank itself... it would be nice if solar panels were perpetual entergy machines.

 

[boldtogether]

Ah-ha!!

 

[boldtogether]

http://www.gizmag.com/blue-freedom-mobile-hydropower/36573/
These are actually really cool and have gotten the hears turning in my brain.....

 

[Aaroncboo1]

http://m.ebay.com/itm/171717932451?...97&_trksid=p2141725.c100338.m3726&_mwBanner=1

Something like this in the return line might power led lights.

 

[convict360]

I actually wanted to look into somar panels to power the entire household but that does not seem feasible at this time...There was a guy who was thrown in jail a few days ago because he had one of those wind turbines set up on his property.I'm still not sure what he did wrong but they made him take it down.....on his property.

Cause the government couldn't take a big chunk of the money for themselves

 

[krichardson]

Cause the government couldn't take a big chunk of the money for themselves

I'm not sure but in the short video footage he did not look as if he was doing it for profit but rather just to power his home.The turbine was not one of those fifty footers with twenty foot long rotors,it was a relatively small unit in comparison....barely cleared the top of his house and with small rotors.

 

[convict360]

I'm not sure but in the short video footage he did not look as if he was doing it for profit but rather just to power his home.The turbine was not one of those fifty footers with twenty foot long rotors,it was a relatively small unit in comparison....barely cleared the top of his house and with small rotors.

I'm just being a cynic lol, power to him though haha

 

[krichardson]

Okay,finally got around to looking the guy up lol and it seems the neighbors did not like him having the turbine and got the city involved.There are ordinances in that town regarding turbines and they must have found a violation to slap him with...Here's a shot.
)

 

[matseski]

Using your artificial lights or water flow as a source of energy is a poor investment. Nothing is 100% efficient. Aquarium lights do not give enough intensity to make significant energy with solar panels, let alone the fact that you would be blocking light and then converting it at 30-40% efficiency back into electricity. While putting a little turbine on your outlets will generate power, you need to take into account the increased load that will put on your pump and the reduced flow to your tank either in terms of g/hr and/ or speed of the flow. You would generate a few watts at best, only enough to power 2-3 low luminosity LEDs.

Now if you want to install solar panels or a mini hydroelectric plant from a natural source, you can make some significant gains for powering your aquarium.

 

[Freemananana]

Putting a turbine on the output of a filter doesn't make sense to me. You are powering the turbine with another turbine basically. You're using electricity to make electricity basically. If you had a gravity fed sump, you could put it on the drain and let gravity produce the power for the turbine. I think physics gets in the way of putting a turbine on the output of a canister filter though.