Electricity Bill

  • We are currently upgrading MFK. thanks! -neo
I find submersible heaters very inefficient,..... especially if you're trying to heat a larger tank 4+ degrees from ambient temperatures. The hydor eth inline works great for me and have noticed a drop in my electric bill since switching. I also notice minimal temp differences from one end of the tank to the other.

Also agree.... switch to led lighting.

Also look at your return pump if you have a sump.... depending on manufacturer.... some pumps use A LOT more wattage for the same GPH as other pumps...... I'm talking 50 watt difference here.

Also, keep your lights on a timer or only turn on when you are around.....
 
When I had all 5 tanks running in my apartment, my electric bills were close to $250 a month.

So then I sold 2 tanks and combined the fish into 3.

My biggest tank runs 3 FX5s, a 500 watt heater, and 1 marineland 360 with a UV attached and also a pump to power both 8" round air disks. 2 48" lights on top.

The 265 runs 2 marineland 360s, 2 200 watt heaters, 1 48" light and 1 26" light.

The 125 runs 1 marineland 360, 1 protein skimmer and 1 300 watt heater.

Then I replaced all my lightbulbs to the eco bulbs, found the cheapest ones at wal-mart, which are 10 watt. In both bathrooms there were 6 65 watt bulbs, so a total of 12, 6 were running at any time. Now I replaced them all with 10 watt bulbs, then decided they were too bright, so now in each bathroom, I run 1 10 watt eco bulb, thats it. In my ceiling fans, both were changed to eco bulbs, in the hallway, living room, dining room and laundry room, all eco bulbs.

I also put up space blankets on my sliding windows to keep the heat out, and the cool in, had the apt complex add new weather stripping to my door because I was losing a lot of air thru the cracks.

Also turned down the water heater, the washing machine doesnt use hot water and I have one of the new washers that use very little water, its an HE.

Air filters are replaced often by the apt complex.

Only bad thing is the apts are facing the wrong direction so I get no breeze, so I had to use a couple small fans but they work well.

My last bill, which was this month is $176 and should be cheaper now that the AC isnt on at all and I hardly ever use the heat in winter unless it really cold out there. So I'm looking at about a $100 bill or so between next month and February.

$75 savings aint to bad, it cost more than that to save that much but over time it will pay for itself.
 
Fighting the forces of nature is an expensive battle. Heating and/or cooling water uses an enormous amount of energy. Keep fish that can tolerate the temperatures in which you live.

Purchase a Kill-o-watt to determine your "vampire" devices (some equipment/appliances draw small amounts of electricity even when they are off). Once you determine what these items are, you can plug them into a power strip that can be flipped to the off position when the items are not in use.

Reconsider your required turnover. I see a lot of people claiming that 10X turnover is ideal. This is not a big deal for a 10 gallon tank, but when you increase to a larger size aquarium, achieving 10x turnover becomes pretty expensive. I personally think this recommendation is overkill. I think 3 to 5 times is fine. Using the most efficient pump on the market, turning my 770G tank over 10 times per hour would cost me $150/month, given my 0.34Kwh electric rate. Turning the tank over 3 times would "only" cost $43.

Without knowing what equipment you are running, it is tough to give you more specific advice.
 
DFishFox said:
Call it a long term investment. How much do people pay for a hybrid car? You may say oh well they need to drive and gas is expensive, but the lights still need to come on and guess what? Electric is expensive too.

But the Biggest $$ for me is swapping all the regular light bulbs around the house with energy efficient ones. (The ones with florescent coils). Typically they run on less than a third of the wattage a regular bulbs uses.
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Yep 100% the most cost/energy effective thing you can do is to swap the light bulbs, they are also very cheap now and days. Also filtration gets expensive, try and shy away from canisters as they are the worse in energy effiency.

Hydor make pumps the flow 300 GPH for less then 8 wats. I use them in my 100 gal Tenecor in replacement of the old pumps. They run 2x the strength with a 1\10th of the cost
 
insulate your house, i insulated my stand for my 180 and that really made a difference since it kept my sump warmer without the heater having to turn on that much
 
MasterB said:
When I had all 5 tanks running in my apartment, my electric bills were close to $250 a month.

So then I sold 2 tanks and combined the fish into 3.

My biggest tank runs 3 FX5s, a 500 watt heater, and 1 marineland 360 with a UV attached and also a pump to power both 8" round air disks. 2 48" lights on top.

The 265 runs 2 marineland 360s, 2 200 watt heaters, 1 48" light and 1 26" light.

The 125 runs 1 marineland 360, 1 protein skimmer and 1 300 watt heater.

Then I replaced all my lightbulbs to the eco bulbs, found the cheapest ones at wal-mart, which are 10 watt. In both bathrooms there were 6 65 watt bulbs, so a total of 12, 6 were running at any time. Now I replaced them all with 10 watt bulbs, then decided they were too bright, so now in each bathroom, I run 1 10 watt eco bulb, thats it. In my ceiling fans, both were changed to eco bulbs, in the hallway, living room, dining room and laundry room, all eco bulbs.

I also put up space blankets on my sliding windows to keep the heat out, and the cool in, had the apt complex add new weather stripping to my door because I was losing a lot of air thru the cracks.

Also turned down the water heater, the washing machine doesnt use hot water and I have one of the new washers that use very little water, its an HE.

Air filters are replaced often by the apt complex.

Only bad thing is the apts are facing the wrong direction so I get no breeze, so I had to use a couple small fans but they work well.

My last bill, which was this month is $176 and should be cheaper now that the AC isnt on at all and I hardly ever use the heat in winter unless it really cold out there. So I'm looking at about a $100 bill or so between next month and February.

$75 savings aint to bad, it cost more than that to save that much but over time it will pay for itself.
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Why do you run 3 fx 5's. To me thats working the opposite way of energy effencieny.

Why 3 fx5's instead of 1 better canister filter? Whats the benefits of 3 small canisters over 1 large one?
 
Spyder001 USA said:
Why do you run 3 fx 5's. To me thats working the opposite way of energy effencieny.

Why 3 fx5's instead of 1 better canister filter? Whats the benefits of 3 small canisters over 1 large one?
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An FX5 consumes only 48 watts with a 925gph pump which isn't that bad. A similarly sized standalone pump like the Quiet One 4000 (1017gph) consumes 65 watts. And there really isn't a canister filter that's larger than the FX5. Me personally I prefer sumps over canister filters for efficiency but that's a different debate.
 
BayArea_510 said:
insulate your house, i insulated my stand for my 180 and that really made a difference since it kept my sump warmer without the heater having to turn on that much
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LOL, your mom pays the bills...

I run 4 tanks, (well one is a Rubber bin) 2 big dbl flow overhang filters,1 small overhang, 3 air pumps, 4 heaters 50, 200, 200, 500watts...one overhead light, 18wt UV sterilizer, 2 powerheads, run the Air Conditioner on All Day (98 degree average here), my bill is $80 or less.
 
Lights are huge, I'm only using 40w of led to run my 500g. I also spent a little more to get a reeflo hammerhead gold that pushed 5555gph or something like that and only uses like 242w. Insulating the bottom and any painted sides helps also.
 
I think its all off set by my IBM trutemp 1000w heater that's always running:nilly:
 
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