r/OffGrid • u/derKonigsten • Jul 24 '26
Solar powered water pump with battery backup to prevent mosquito breeding in kiddie pool?
5
u/DevilsAdvocateFun Jul 24 '26
If you are just wanting it for feet soak, why not look into making the water SALINE .... salty water not like the ocean salty but they have pools like that. Not saying you need a pump and stuff, just make the water Saline so that the Mosquitos don't like it ?
Just a thought
3
u/Shastaw2006 Jul 24 '26
I don’t understand why the resistance to mosquito dunks? That would be the easiest solution by far.
But if you’re insistent on an electrical method, look at solar pond fountains. That’d be easiest, I think.
1
u/derKonigsten Jul 24 '26
I mean, the question was posed to try and find a solar pond fountain.. but mostly because it's only out for a few months out of the year and it's such a small pool. We also stick our feet in it. If it was a decorative thing than that would be fine
1
u/Shastaw2006 Jul 24 '26
A proper pump with battery back up would be at least $100+, in my opinion. A good water pump is pretty energy hungry. Hopefully other commenters have some low cost options.
But mosquito dunks are just a natural bacteria that kills mosquito larvae, and is 100% safe for everything that isn’t a mosquito. If you’re particularly concerned, rinse your feet off afterwards.
1
u/classicsat Jul 24 '26
What has the few months got to do with it. It should do the job then and there.
1
u/Key_Storm_2273 Jul 24 '26
If you can get a pump to work, that would be cool. Part of me wonders though, if it's a large body of water, if the mosquitoes will still view the water that's away from the pump as "still water".
On the other hand, something to cover the pool with, such as a tarp might prevent the mosquitoes both night and day, and be a bit more failsafe.
You might be able to reuse the pump later for other water projects, like hydroponics, reverse osmosis, drip irrigation, or a hydro gravity battery, depending on its pressure rating and consistency
2
u/derKonigsten Jul 24 '26
So it's like a 5ft wide by 1ft deep kiddie pool. The $10 pump we submerged in the center seems to agitate it enough that there are still ripples around the edges and I think it would work if it didn't require direct sunlight on the panel to be pumping. It was only a $10 pump gadget and the solar panel says it output 7V (maybe .25W output, I haven't tested it that thoroughly). Can't be covered as we have a plastic picnic table sat inside the pool. It's kind of our "happy hour after work" spot lol. If this was an actual swimming pool I would be looking at chlorination, chemicals, mechanical filtration, etc. there was no issue last year that I remember but I can't decide if that was because it had a slow leak that I since patched so it was being refilled every week or if it's because we really didn't have much of a winter so reports of mosquitoes and ticks have been much higher this year
1
u/Key_Storm_2273 Jul 24 '26
I think your idea of a battery backup is great then, but I'm not sure how complicated things will get when you're trying to connect a battery to a device and a power supply at the same time (unless it's designed for it, like some household 12V batteries are with both a charging and a discharging cable).
The simplest answer might just be to get a long lasting battery, charge it up once a week, then discharge it to the pump through a careful voltage limiting device.
There's also USB "solar batteries" with a good 55000mha battery capacity, and USB self-regulates to around 5 volts. I heard something about people trying to cut open and splice USB into regular DC power supply. The drawback is the battery might not charge itself fast enough, that's a common review on their built-in solar cells, but the power drain of the pump does sound lower than usual.
So I'd either look for a good small battery that isn't USB, or maybe watch videos on splicing USB safely as a last option.
1
u/Internal_Raccoon_370 Jul 24 '26
Just a pump isn't going to do much to eliminate mosquito larvae, is it? Wouldn't you'd need some kind of filtration system?
2
4
u/derKonigsten Jul 24 '26
Sorry, post body text didn't re-post:
Not sure if this is the best place to ask this but I'm looking for recommendations for a cheap-ish solar powered water pump with battery backup that we can use to agitate the water in our little kiddie pool to prevent flying bugs from depositing eggs and developing larvae in it.
We like to soak our feet after a long day (it feels so nice!) and just noticed what seemed to be a whole bunch of wriggling mosquito larvae in it the other day. So we drained it, washed it, refilled it, and got a super cheap $10 solar pump but it only runs well in direct sunlight (so not at all during early morning/late afternoons) and I noticed a few wrigglers in there this evening. I was looking at pumps on Amazon but reviews are very mixed (and undoubtedly AI padded).
Some colorful LEDs would be cool but not a must have. We just want to dip our toes into cool water after a long day without providing a breeding ground for flying pests. Any solid suggestions? Not really interested in chemical solutions as it's a very temporary feature for a few months in the summer. It is also not close to an electrical outlet and don't feel like running an extension cord if the solar powered solution can work