I don't know the brand (but I bet they came from Advance or TSC) of my batteries but I noticed the sticker on it was 03/11 when I put the charger on the starting battery. I used to have a lot of trouble with batteries until I starting cleaning my connections twice a year, in spring before fishing season and in fall before hunting season, and I started putting the batteries on a charger after everytime I used them to keep them fully charged.

I have never messed with putting water in these, I just make sure they stay charged after use.

I have my starting battery and accessory battery wired in parallel. The motor is wired directly to the starting battery. All accessories save for the trolling motor are going through Johnny Ray battery terminals on the accessory battery.

I want to say there are only a very few (lead acid) battery manufacturers in the US. Most of the different brands are made in the same factory I guess. I wish I had the coin for a lithium set up mainly for weight savings. My batteries are in the bilge area and it would be nice to have less weight back there.