Challenging developments.

[esoxlucius]

But you commented that you could see yourself exiting the hobby altogether;

I did indeed touch on this in that previous thread you spoke about. If I remember rightly I said I wouldn't be getting any more fish for my 360, which is definitely still the case. Once they all die off naturally then I mentioned that I could possibly come out of the hobby, depending on circumstances at the time. But like I said, the lifespan of my clowns and GG will mean i'll be in it for a while yet.

Fishman Dave has potentially got bigger problems than I, especially when the price hikes hit us in October, and then winter after that. His fish room is going to be a real problem, I hope things work out for him. The last thing he needs is more donated fish from me!

My hope is that things settle down, I get on top of this debt and that my electricity usage finds a new manageable level once we've put all the new energy saving plans into practice. We'll see.

One good thing out of all this electricity mess is the other part of the energy equation....gas! We hardly use any gas and even during winter the central heating will never be on due to our toasty wood burner. Every cloud, lol.

 

[Fishman Dave]

Certainly feel your pain.

currently it’s summer so in theory I too am running at the best time of year. Thankfully most of my tanks are located in my shed ( fish house) which is 30x9 ft and wooden. With the kingspan insulation and all the tanks, a window in the roof for light I can house my 1200ukg tropical pond in there too and keep a summer temp of 26 and a winter temp of 19-20 with NO additional heating of that pond.
Through the summer months the shed is actually warmer than the house, so heating tanks is cheap(er). However, the downside is that 16 other tanks in there all have heaters ranging from 50 to 300 watts and it’s those through the winter months that keep the tanks, and hence the room temperature at around 24 in winter.
Whilst the pond benefits from the warmth of the room - I heat 16 tanks with almost 4kw of heating on at an estimated 25%to33% of the time.
it’s certainly the heating as you all said that mounts up the cost.

I have managed to keep the running wattage of pumps quite low as I am a big fan of air driven, however any tank over 40ukg does have an eco Pump and filter (40watts) and the ponds indoor and out have 100w and 200w eco pumps too meaning pumps run to roughly 550w in total on constantly.
Lighting I have tried to reduce as much as I can and that’s down at 250w on around 8hrs a day, most of which is actually the old style t5 and t 8 lighting on my planted tanks.
As those fail I am trying to replace them for low wattage led where it is feasible and the running cost savings would justify the outlay.

Currently we are tied in on a good deal with our energy provider and only pay 19p per kWh for electricity but even at that cheap rate we still use over triple the uk average for a household of four and in October when our good deal ends I envisage we will move to circa 50p per kWh and hence be paying more than three times what we are now with the hike in daily charges too.
Hence my electricity bill will be higher than most folks mortgage payments each month!

So, what can be done?
Well, I’ve looked at pool heaters that convert cold air to heat water, and a 1kw unit could heat my indoor pond, and then the room would be heated from the warm pond, removing all the heaters out of the tanks. That unit would cost £1000 and be a 1kw intermittent running cost just like a normal heater.
I could go solar. That’s supposed to be around £7000 for a 4kw system that might power some of my pumps (albeit it’s supposed to take between 14 and 24 years to break even cost wise).
wind power would be good but I could guarantee the strong winds would stop as soon as i bought the unit.

maybe I need to look at a wood burner for the fish house? Although don’t like burning wood in an unattended wooden building!

I will be closing some tanks down for winter (many of the ones I have are breeding and grow on tanks) so that side of the hobby (that finances my buying habit) will have to stop (as will my buying addiction!).

Fish will be moved into bigger tanks and have to share for winter!

The pond will carry on, the stocking is high already with a number of large cats and other fish and if he knew the quantities and sizes MTS would have a dicky fit with his stocking calculators, but they are healthy and “happy” (for now at least- usually changes as soon as I post this!).

The luminair has just packed in on my marine tank in the living room and I have just had to spend £240 on a new led unit. But on the up side the new unit is 46w, the old v2 was 215w so I should get my money back in 2.5 years!

The real problem I have is that I have been doing this now for 43 years none stop, I don’t know what I would do if I didn’t keep fish, and hence I pay ridiculous money to keep doing it.
If I didn’t do this then I may even have to sit talk to my good lady wife!

 

[MultipleTankSyndrome]

and if he knew the quantities and sizes MTS would have a dicky fit with his stocking calculators, but they are healthy and “happy” (for now at least- usually changes as soon as I post this!).

Lol, it might throw you for a dicky fit that I now believe a bit more than 2x-5x as much space as the stocking calculators is needed as a starting point

In all seriousness, I think you'd be best off with a pool heater of all the options. I was going to suggest solar power if you didn't live in the UK.

 

[esoxlucius]

maybe I need to look at a wood burner for the fish house? Although don’t like burning wood in an unattended wooden building!

Jeesh, a price hike from 19p/kWh to around 50p/kWh is devastating!

Long term, and as ridiculous as it sounds, a small multi fuel burner would be great, if you could get it professionally fitted. Though solely burning wood would create heating problems of its own. Wood burns quite quickly. If you're not there to feed it, during the night for instance, then the fire quickly goes out and your temps would drop.

But burning coal on it and putting it on a low setting during the night would solve your problems because it would still be lit in the morning. It may be worth you looking into it, price the coal up and such. I'm sure, if properly installed by professionals, that they could make it extremely safe.

 

[FJB]

Good luck with everything. Hope to see you around.

 

[jjohnwm]

Are pellet stoves a thing over there?

They burn pellets of wood, fed automatically from a hopper into the stove itself, so can run unattended for quite some time.

Failing that, perhaps kerosene?

Or a radiant quartz-type heater? Electricity, yes, but it heats objects rather than the air so it is efficient. I have one pointed at the sump of my largest tank. It alone heats the tank and sump quite nicely, and they in turn heat the room (or shed).

But these are all stopgap measures. For me, at least, the future is cool-water tanks and species. All it takes is the willpower to resist the "wrong" fish in the LFS.

I don't need the cool new species, or the hybrids or mutants (ugh!), or the most colorful, most aggressive, most expensive, most-most-most...anything. Less can be more.

 

[Friller2009]

I too have set of on the cold water route, since I share a fish room. The only tanks that I heat are my 120, 150, 180 and my birchir’s tank.

I have a friend who owns my LFS and he was paying $1000 a quarter to heat it. (He specialises in large cichlids). So he changed his electricity plan company, and then the next day he got an email from his old electricity provider offering a better plan, where he would be about paying $700 a quarter. He refused, and then got an offer of $500 a quarter. Obviously he accepted. He was such a high paying customer, that the provider didn’t want to lose him.

Currently I am looking into more of the colder natives. Can you guys get some of them over in the northern word? Pygmy perch are fantastic. Galaxias are awesome, but most like it below 20 C. I love my Aussie bass. Murray Cod. Look to your native species. European perch are awesome, but highly invade here.

 

[jjohnwm]

I too have set of on the cold water route, since I share a fish room. The only tanks that I heat are my 120, 150, 180 and my birchir’s tank.

I have a friend who owns my LFS and he was paying $1000 a quarter to heat it. (He specialises in large cichlids). So he changed his electricity plan company, and then the next day he got an email from his old electricity provider offering a better plan, where he would be about paying $700 a quarter. He refused, and then got an offer of $500 a quarter. Obviously he accepted. He was such a high paying customer, that the provider didn’t want to lose him.

Currently I am looking into more of the colder natives. Can you guys get some of them over in the northern word? Pygmy perch are fantastic. Galaxias are awesome, but most like it below 20 C. I love my Aussie bass. Murray Cod. Look to your native species. European perch are awesome, but highly invade here.

Personally, I was referring entirely to native fishes, caught locally. I've kept them for decades, and consider the local bait shop almost as a secondary LFS. Back in Ontario, the closest bait shop to my home allowed me to pick and choose among the hundreds or thousands of "minnows" in the tank; in turn, I removed all dead and dying specimens for them and thus improved the health of the stock.

But who knows? If enough hobbyists migrate to the cold side, perhaps LFS inventories will start to feature more appropriate species, both native and exotic. Currently, even when an exotic coldwater or temperate species shows up, it is generally stuck into one of the 75F tanks and sold alongside the "tropicals". It would be nice to see that gradually change.

And I keep thinking about the fact that I have not owned a goldfish for over half a century...

 

[skjl47]

Hello; I have been in heated discussion on a different forum about the current energy policies. Mainly in my own country, tho i do keep up a bit about the rest of the world. I am not sure how it is playing out In the OP's country so may be off quite a bit.

In my part of the world things have not gotten too bad just yet. However, I do expect things to go downhill if current policies continue into next year. The overall plan seems to be to scrap a working energy production and grid based largely on fossil fuels and replace it with an inadequate and untested "green" energy grid. On top of that lots of incentives to add even greater electricity demand with a legislated agenda pushing EV's. In some of mt posts i have described it as a "do-without energy plan." There simply will not be enough electric capacity to run all the new demands and maintain traditional demands at the same time. We will have to pick and choose what electric power we consume. I imagine we cannot get into the details on this site so will leave it at that.

That some of these policies of late have also raised the cost of power in much of the world can also be noted. Some questionable decisions have been made and in my part of the world continue to be added to. looks like a new round of increased inflation is about to happen with the spending of massive amounts of money.

Two closing thoughts. I also have cut back on my tanks in operation the last few years. I have three smaller tanks running with such a small population of fish that all could be put into one tank and still not be over stocked. It is a drive both ways of at least 120 miles to the closest fish shop and 160 miles to my favored shop if they are still in business. With the recent gas prices i ahve not made my monthly trip in nearly six months. The upside ins my fish have a very light stocking density. I have a five-gallon bucket with live plants I pulled from an overgrown tank. I use to take them to the more distant shop nut such a trip is hard to justify.

Last thought. For a few years i had an average payment plan for my electric use. Thing was there was a settle-up month once a year. If I was behind paying in my average, use I had to pay the difference. Then the new average was calculated for the next year. That the OP's power company let the due bill add up for a long time does not fit my idea of competence. But it is what it is. If i use a service, I need to pay up even if the company let things slide too long. To the OP, I admire that you are going to pay up. Sad it puts you in a bind. I suspect we all or at least most of us will be facing more dire straits before the boneheads in power are finished.

 

[Ogertron3000]

I’d be getting some legal advice to check you actually are legally obligated to pay off the debt from the previous companies mistake, it seems a bit dodgy to me.
Is there some kind of consumer advice hotline you can call? I wouldn’t get a lawyer as it would most likely cost more for their fees than the debt itself.