question

[vashawn]

i"m currently running 1200(400x3) watt on my 300gal rr tank w/3 ballast...has anyone every tried hooking up all of this to a car/marine battery to run on a daily basis?

 

[MikeyZO]

what would you use to recharge the battery? Cars and boats have alternators. Without some sort of regeneration, the battery isnt gonna last long.

 

[masterswimmer]

You'd need quite a large inverter to do this. Car/marine batteries are DC while your household current is AC.

As Mike stated, you'd be drawing down the battery very fast. I wouldn't be surprised if the battery didn't last for the length of even one of your light cycles while drawing 1200 watts. That's 10 amps and once again, I don't think a marine battery can deliver that demand.

swimmer

 

[NYPDFrogman]

OK drop down the wattage! I'm running 3 250W 10K coral vues on my 450 with lumenarc reflectors and T5 supplementation.... corals showing good health and growing! My monti cap has grown almost 1/2 growth in 2 months

Ok everyone start to flame away your welcome to come and see my tank as proof!
also i cut down my MH photo period from 10 Hours a day to 6 since I switched over to the 450


I've been told the lumenbrights are better than the lumen arcs

that would be money well spent rather than trying use supplment electric supply

 

[NYreefNoob]

ive been running my mh for 5 hr's a day since i set it up, nd actually think things look better, now on to the question, you would still use the same amount of electricity, using those batteries, even using a semi battery because you still need to re-charge them, i use to use 8 of those batteries when i had hydraulics on a car of mine, still took 6 hr's to re-charge them with a quick charger meant for those batteries. so no i dont think you will save anything, and then by the time you bought all the batteries and charger it would cost you more

 

[Killerdrgn]

plus don't forget the energy loss in trying to recharge batteries. In all systems there is always energy loss due to heat or other unwanted byproducts.

 

[vashawn]

ok cooll...thanks guys....i running my lights about 5 hrs a day. i was trying to find some way on cuting down on my electric bill.