# Aquarium Water Wheels



## Shugo (Jun 19, 2015)

So I've been doing a lot of research, and will be working with my uncle on this whom is a licensed Electrician, and I was curious.... what's everyone's thoughts on running a waterwheel within your sump system to help create a self-sustaining Aquarium? Obviously i'm not talking about running this on a small aquarium, my current tank is 150 gallons and my next will be a 320 Gallon.

I know that I am going to need to pull up the Schematics online for everything I'm running within the aquarium to figure out exactly how much energy will be needed per day in order for this to work and I am already in the works to figure that out.... but has anyone thought of doing this themselves.... or better yet, has anyone already succeeded? 

Just a curious thought was all... even if it fails it's worth the effort.


----------



## Warhawk (Feb 23, 2014)

It does sound like a cool idea but you would need a very efficient way to produce enough power. If I was going to try and do this here is how I would do it.


I would try to find a sump pump that will run off 12 volts. That way you could use something like a car battery to run the pump and just need to find a way to keep it charged. READ UP ON BATTERY CHARGING CAR BATTERIES GIVE OFF GAS WHEN CHARGING AND IT'S DEADLY. There are ways to do it but it has been a while so I can't recall how. If you used a normal pump you would have to use a AC converter and that will use more power meaning you have to produce even more. 

For your charging section I would have the over flow go thru a 3" or 4" section of PVC. You could mount a generator on to the pipe with the shaft inside the pipe and put paddles on the shaft so as the water passes thru the pipe it would turn the generator. Now one won't be enough to keep the battery charged but you could put 3 or 4 generators in the pipe and that might be enough. Your drain pipe will have to be a little angle so all the water stays together on one side to turn the paddles in one direction only. 

I'm no engineer or anything so someone else might be able to do the math to tell you if something like this would even work. The key is to measure the generator output with different amounts of water or angles and make sure you have enough power being created to keep the battery charged.


It does sound like a cool idea and I would be tempted to give it a try if I could find some small generators to work with.


----------



## Shugo (Jun 19, 2015)

yea i know; and I was going to work with my uncle whom is an electrician on this after I buy my house but do all my research in the meantime.

I'm glad i'm getting others interested in this idea though


----------



## Warhawk (Feb 23, 2014)

In theory it should work. 

Kicking the idea around at lunch the limiting factor is the generating of electricity. You could use a simple electric motor with a water wheel on the shaft in the water over flow pipe but I don't know if the water would be moving fast enough. If the water is almost in a free fall it should be enough to push the wheel around easy.

Another thing is when the water exits the wheel it won't be flowing smooth and won't turn the next wheel as well so you will have to space them out to allow the water time to smooth out again. This could be over come by putting more water thru the pipe or smaller pipe. 


I do like the idea and I would be interested in knowing if you are able to make it work or not.


----------



## Shugo (Jun 19, 2015)

yea i was actually thinking about using my Fluval FX6 to help with that issue and a small lite-plastic based wheel system i could glue on the motor piece (spraying everything with that stuff they use on 'Tank'd' to make it aquarium safe of course) within the sump system


----------



## Jaybird1 (Feb 9, 2015)

*Research start here*



Shugo said:


> yea i know; and I was going to work with my uncle whom is an electrician on this after I buy my house but do all my research in the meantime.
> 
> I'm glad i'm getting others interested in this idea though



*Search: Bilge pumps.* Marine Bilge pumps are also good in salt water. They are available with many different flow rates. I looked at one at Amazon that pumped 62 gallons per minute, or 3700 G P Hour.


My brother used one in his pond for years hooked up to a battery and a trickle charger.

Just an FYI G P H divided by 60 = G P M


----------



## Warhawk (Feb 23, 2014)

One thing to keep in mind, if your making this a sump type setup so your filtering is happening in the sump tank you will have a lot of trash and debris going down that pipe with your water wheels. 


When that junk goes down the over flow it will get clogged up and could cause a over flow of the system. You could set up a over flow pipe for your main over flow pipe to reduce the chance of leaks. And you could put prefilters in the tanks to catch the junk before it goes into the pipe. But you need to clear those once a week or more depending on your tank.


A bilge pump should work good. Could be over kill for a small fish tank but if you wanted to set up multiple tanks or a really large one that would be a good way to go.


----------



## Jaybird1 (Feb 9, 2015)

*In short it will not work*



Shugo said:


> So I've been doing a lot of research, and will be working with my uncle on this whom is a licensed Electrician, and I was curious.... what's everyone's thoughts on running a waterwheel within your sump system to help create a self-sustaining Aquarium? Obviously i'm not talking about running this on a small aquarium, my current tank is 150 gallons and my next will be a 320 Gallon.
> 
> I know that I am going to need to pull up the Schematics online for everything I'm running within the aquarium to figure out exactly how much energy will be needed per day in order for this to work and I am already in the works to figure that out.... but has anyone thought of doing this themselves.... or better yet, has anyone already succeeded?
> 
> Just a curious thought was all... even if it fails it's worth the effort.



You are taking about perpetual motion. You need to put more energy in then you can get out of your generator do to the fact some of the energy that is used is lost to heat.

Save yourself time, energy, and most importantly money. It would be easier to just buy a trickle charger. 

Oh I forgot hair pulling. :wink:


----------

