Bahahaha....awesome.




Sorry to hear about your power bill... ours is now like triple what it used to be before I lived here and before we had the tanks. :(

I am running a good size system and I calculated my electrical cost to be approx. $50 per month. I have used the RC calculator to approximate the cost of electricity consumed. I am very careful when selecting new equipment to ensure that electrical consumption is a consideration. My main system return is an Ampmaster pump and it uses about half of the power that Reeflow pumps use. Tunze product are also very low consumers as well.

http://reefcentral.com/calc/tank_elec_calc.php

Tom R

I add up the wattage of my equipment x the number of hours each set is on per day and multiply by 30. Then I multiply that by the $/kwh.

My systems are mainly low power, with the exceptions being 3 x 250w MH on for 10 hours/day. I also have 4 Sedra 9000 pumps going 24/7 (2 skimmer @ 55w/2 returns @ 90w) and those are my main draws.

Low power lighting over the fowlr, seahorse, goldfish, sump & shrimp tanks & med. power (4 x 55w PC) over the planted community. The HOB & cannister filters, powerheads & such draw very little & I keep my tank temps on the low side with no ill effects. Until a couple days ago, didn't even have a heater plugged into the reef tank & the fish/corals were fine in the low-mid 70s. On my other tanks, I estimate the heaters to be on 12 hours/day or less.

In the winter, my bill rises due to heaters but not huge.

I made sure I went with slow flow for the returns so less power needed (some friends use 300w return pumps for instance).

My wife's goldfish tank probably draws 50 watts max/hour with lights for 8 hours & 30w for the other 16 hours daily.

I use a clip on light with a 27 watt Phillips Daylight CFL bulb over my sump & 2 over my seahorse tank. (in other words, a Tek HOT5 is way over kill for a sump light)

The 210g reef draws approx. 315 watts 24/7 (pump, powerheads, skimmer, fuge light, 80w UV) and 1065 watts for 10 hours when the MH lights come on. At $.065/kwh (old rate), that's $.69 for 10 hrs & then $.29 for the other 14 hours. That's roughly a dollar for the reef or $30/month for my reef tank. All the other tanks' equipment combined do not equal what my reef tank draws. My rough calculations is $1/day for the other 5 tanks.

Actually, with those 2 new tanks I added since I last did this calculation, I guess I'm up to $60/month for powering this addiction. Averages out to $10/tank since I have 6 different tanks running. Not bad.

I know it's too late (you've already bought and installed your equipment) but there are low power alternatives to many things needed for the tanks. I went from a 250w MH pendant over my seahorse tank to 2 x 27w clip on CFL lights. I harvest and sell my macro every week or two, so they work fine for nutrient export. I have smaller heaters (150w to 200w) and keep my tank temps in the low to mid 70s without any issues.

It sounds like you have your sump in the basement & so you need a high power pump to send water up 10+ feet to the display tank, whereas I can get away with a 90w Sedra.

Anthony

hehehehe....wifes goldfish tank... :)

Ask my friends. She made me tear down a 6'6" planted community discus tank over a 6' rainbow/congo tetra tank, then tells me she wants a fancy goldfish tank as I'm draining my tanks of water.

Hey Anthony, does Irene do the maintenance on the goldfish tank? :wink:

a while back i bought a power meter from costco kinda like a kill-a-watt meter and i found other than the lights heaters where my biggest problem with 4or5 tanks usually running i had about 1000w of heaters which were costing me between $1-2 per day my 8 bulb tek light which is around 400w was costing me about $0.75 per day other things where seio powerheads and some things around the house, with all my tanks i average about $250 a month, usually one is a bit lower for the estimate and 1 is a bit higher and i calculate power at $0.11
some things actually use alot less power than they say or i would expect so that was a nice change,mh lights on the other hand use up to 20% more than they say so 750w of halides is probably over 1000w and costing you up to $2 per day

also about the heaters, i found it much cheeper to run my heat up all day and night then to have the heaters sucking up power

i think anyone with a bigger reef or multiple tanks should buy a meter, i got mine from costco online for $35 and ive seen canadian tire selling them in the flyers for about the same, kill-a-watt meters are about $50 but i think they have some better functions

My old tank with dual 400 halides, 320 watts of T5, 150 watts over fuge, return pump, powerheads, skimmer, ect. only cost $50 a month.

I really don't see how your bill can go up that much just from the tank!

all you guys wasting power with heaters, you need to get those 400W MHs

The reasons Lights use MORE power than the rating, is the Bulb Wattage is what the BULB uses. The ballast also consumes some energy in producing the Bulb wattage. Old TAR ballasts ya can be up to 25% ineffiecent. Electronics are way better