Is anyone using a solar-powered water pump

[Terry Allan Hall]

for their tortoise enclosure to create a small waterfall?

Shoot me some ideas to make a bit more humidity in both the Hermann's enclosure and the Otnate box turtles'.

Mostly I need to know what's the optimum size...would this work?
http://www.siliconsolar.com/6v-solar-pump-with-leds-p-17860.html

Thanks in advance!

 

[dmarcus]

I did try this for Tejas in his indoor inclosure with a regular fountain pump but it became a hassal and it kept the substrate to wet..

The price is good, and hopefully it works the way it's suppose to, not sure how it would help outside unless it keeps the surrounding area wet which would help with the humidity.....

 

[Terry Allan Hall]

I did try this for Tejas in his indoor inclosure with a regular fountain pump but it became a hassal and it kept the substrate to wet..

The price is good, and hopefully it works the way it's suppose to, not sure how it would help outside unless it keeps the surrounding area wet which would help with the humidity.....

Primarily, it would be for our Ornate box turtles, as they prefer a bit more humidity, so I'm figuring that by splashing the water onto a flat rock in the water container in their enclosure, it'll raise the humidity a bit...and I'm planting some wide-leafed plants, that the Ornates won't eat, to help retain the humidity.

No idea if it'll make any difference for my Hermann's, though...most of the plants are probably on their "munchies list".

 

[dmarcus]

Okay that is very cool especially about the plants.. Can't wait to hear the results of that.. If the plants help retain the humidity then those Box turtles will really enjoy it..

 

[Zouave]

Was discussing a waterfall feature with a friend and he offered up a low tech solution, drip water from a container hanging above the enclosure. Of course someone is already selling these http://www.zoomed.com/db/products/EntryDetail.php?EntryID=10&DatabaseID=2&SearchID=1 but no reason a plastic jug couldn't be re-purposed.

Just a thought

 

[Terry Allan Hall]

Was discussing a waterfall feature with a friend and he offered up a low tech solution, drip water from a container hanging above the enclosure. Of course someone is already selling these http://www.zoomed.com/db/products/EntryDetail.php?EntryID=10&DatabaseID=2&SearchID=1 but no reason a plastic jug couldn't be re-purposed.

Just a thought

I can see where that'd be pretty handy for chameleons and other indoor herps, but I'm going to use this outside, and want it to recirculate the water more-or-less constantly...was considering running a AC-line under the ground to the enclosures until I found out that there are solar-powered pumps that literally run for free.

 

[chairman]

I tried to run a solar pump for my hingeback tortoises' outdoor enclosure. The pump I used was from harbor freight and appeared to be similar to the product that you're looking at. My lessons learned were:

Solar cell was so small that it needed daily cleaning to catch enough light to run. Occasional clouds were also show stoppers.
Also related to solar cell size, even aimed at the "optimum" angle for catching sunlight (towards the equator at an angle roughly equivalent to your latitude if I remember correctly, which I may not) the thing still didn't run all that often. It definitely needed to be set up as a charging circuit with batteries to even run during the entire day.
Pump was designed for a clean water application. I tried encasing it with filter media to keep the big chunks away from it but that wasn't enough to keep the pump from getting clogged. A skimmer set-up with good prefilters is almost going to be a necessity for these things.
The constant start/stopping, clogging and trying to run, etc burned out my motor fairly quickly. At that point my little pond just wound up being a puddle and my tortoises didn't seem to like it any less.

I think that in order to make solar work for a tortoise pond application you're going to need to make sure that the pump only receives filtered water and it would probably be best to install a system with a battery in it.

 

[Terry Allan Hall]

I tried to run a solar pump for my hingeback tortoises' outdoor enclosure. The pump I used was from harbor freight and appeared to be similar to the product that you're looking at. My lessons learned were:

Solar cell was so small that it needed daily cleaning to catch enough light to run. Occasional clouds were also show stoppers.
Also related to solar cell size, even aimed at the "optimum" angle for catching sunlight (towards the equator at an angle roughly equivalent to your latitude if I remember correctly, which I may not) the thing still didn't run all that often. It definitely needed to be set up as a charging circuit with batteries to even run during the entire day.
Pump was designed for a clean water application. I tried encasing it with filter media to keep the big chunks away from it but that wasn't enough to keep the pump from getting clogged. A skimmer set-up with good prefilters is almost going to be a necessity for these things.
The constant start/stopping, clogging and trying to run, etc burned out my motor fairly quickly. At that point my little pond just wound up being a puddle and my tortoises didn't seem to like it any less.

I think that in order to make solar work for a tortoise pond application you're going to need to make sure that the pump only receives filtered water and it would probably be best to install a system with a battery in it.

Thanks for that info...good to know.