Power usage questions

[asylumdown]

Hey folks,

I'm in California for my wedding, and Enmax's gift to us for the occasion was an $800 utility bill, which sort of took my breath away. $600ish of that was the electricity bill. This is way higher than it normally is, and I haven't changed anything with the tank since December, but I've been tasked with figuring out exactly how much my tank is drawing on a daily basis so we can try to figure out exactly how much of the monthly bill is because of my aquarium.

I'm going through the list of my equipment and totalling up the max wattage of all my devices, but I have a couple of questions:

1. I have 8 gen 1 radions. The fixtures run at a max wattage of ~130 watts, but I never run them at higher than 75% intensity, and that's only for 4 hours a day. 118 watts of the total draw from the fixtures comes from the bulbs, so would it be an accurate thing to take 75% of 118, then add the 12 watts that come from the fan/internals to get what's being drawn when all channels are at 100% but 75% intensity? i.e., at their max as I have them set, are my fixtures drawing around 101 watts? I really want to figure out how much power they draw over the course of the whole day, from ramp up to ramp down, but I want to make sure I'm calculating their max draw correctly first.

2. I have an Apex (the radions unfortunately are not plugged in to the Apex as they trip the GFI circuits the controller is plugged in to), and I have it set to record the total amperage being run through the power bars. I haven't hooked the controller up to web based interface yet (I know i know, why even have a controller?), but am I also able to get it to tell me how long a particular outlet has power? Basically I want to know how long it's been running my two heaters over a period of time so I can figure out how much energy is being expended heating my tank.

[sphelps]

Have you considered purchasing an energy monitor? You can get whole house monitors that measure total power usage at your breaker box and some will even monitor individual circuits as well. With an electricity bill that high it's probably a good investment. Without that I would just try and use your apex to monitor everything at least for one day so you know what they typically use.

[Tom R]

Like most reef keepers I have tried to get every last watt out of an electoral outlet. One day I felt one of my many power bars and it was very warm. That circuit was blowing fuses every once in a while. I now have 3 dedicated circuits to my fish room and needed a better distribution of my electricity. I bought the Power Meter and redistributed me electrical usage. Overloading a circuit can burn your house down.

I bought a Blue Planet Electronic Energy Meter that costs me less than $20.00 at Canadian Tire. I have used it to measures and compare my energy usage from lights, heater and pumps.

http://www.smarthome.com/1139/Energy-Meter-w-LCD-Display/p.aspx

Tom R

[asylumdown]

The apex can't log when an outlet turns on/off?

[asylumdown]

Like most reef keepers I have tried to get every last watt out of an electoral outlet. One day I felt one of my many power bars and it was very warm. That circuit was blowing fuses every once in a while. I now have 3 dedicated circuits to my fish room and needed a better distribution of my electricity. I bought the Power Meter and redistributed me electrical usage. Overloading a circuit can burn your house down.

I bought a Blue Planet Electronic Energy Meter that costs me less than $20.00 at Canadian Tire. I have used it to measures and compare my energy usage from lights, heater and pumps.

http://www.smarthome.com/1139/Energy-Meter-w-LCD-Display/p.aspx

Tom R

Ooooooh, this is just what I'm looking for.

[asylumdown]

With that energy meter I should be able to plug each of the apex power bars in to it and see what the total load of the power bars are, as well as the lights.

Hehe, marriage potentially saved.

[Tom R]

I bought mine from Canadian Tire however I no longer find them in a search of products available. They were in the electrical area next to the electronic thermostats.

I am currently analyzing the savings made by changing over to LEDs from MH. The electricity saved by using LEDs is somewhat offset by an increase in heating costs.

Tom R

[asylumdown]

Alright, just ordered a similar power meter that measures total kilowatt hours of a particular appliance over a period of time. 48 hour free shipping with amazon prime, delivery on Saturday. Thank goodness for a US address. All I have to say is, we get so utterly hosed living in Canada. If Canada becoming the 51st state means we get the same access to online shopping and shipping as the states, I'll be the first signature on that petition.

[toxic111]

I doubt that is from your reef. I would look to other sources. One of the biggest culprits this time of the year is plugging you car in. Only plug one in if you need too.

I know when I went from my 33gal to my 120 I didn't notice much of an increase at all.

[asylumdown]

I bought mine from Canadian Tire however I no longer find them in a search of products available. They were in the electrical area next to the electronic thermostats.

I am currently analyzing the savings made by changing over to LEDs from MH. The electricity saved by using LEDs is somewhat offset by an increase in heating costs.

Tom R

Yah, my suspicion is that my heaters have been coming on a lot. The billing period was Dec. 20 to Jan. 23, when our house was the coldest. That's why I was wondering if the apex could tell me how often an outlet is switched on.

Calculating the wattage, assuming at 75% my LEDs are drawing around ~100-101 watts, I've got around 800 watts of led light over a 275 gallon tank at peak hours. No wonder I can't keep low light LPS. I might decommission a couple Radions.

[Tom R]

In BC our upper marginal rate for electricity is .102 per KWH, so I can load that rate into the device and it will tell you not only how much power was used but also how much it cost in a given period of time.

I have found this device very useful.

Tom R

[ckmullin]

http://www.canreef.com/vbulletin/showthread.php?p=794547#post794547

same thing. free with canuck bucks lol (glad locked into the .07c kwh!)