Hot and cold drip vs Cold
- Thread starter CANAMONSTER
- Start date
i have (3) 300 watt heaters in my filter system.. my filter is outside so currently they are barely on
I use hot only to control temp (no heaters) on my 600 gallon system. Temp stays at 78 degrees and my electric bill went WAY down when I stopped using heaters. I now only use 125w for my pump and roughly 80w on lighting. The drip is set to change about 5 gph. The cost of using gas to heat the water vs electric is vastly different, I personally will never go back to high electric bills for my tank. It's win-win-win, 24/7 water change, stable temps and a happier wife due to lower aquarium bills 
I use hot only to control temp (no heaters) on my 600 gallon system. Temp stays at 78 degrees and my electric bill went WAY down when I stopped using heaters. I now only use 125w for my pump and roughly 80w on lighting. The drip is set to change about 5 gph. The cost of using gas to heat the water vs electric is vastly different, I personally will never go back to high electric bills for my tank. It's win-win-win, 24/7 water change, stable temps and a happier wife due to lower aquarium bills
This is exactly what I was thinking. Does your gas heater run alot or come on and off at a good pace?
Electricity here is 8 to 16 cents a kW!
I'm wondering how much of your electric bill is due to aquarium heaters. I suspect not much. Years ago, back in the 4.5 cents a kWh days, I put in about 600 gallons of 40-50 gallon tanks into the living room of the house I was in. Our power bill increase was negligible, our natural gas bill nosedived because we never used it the next couple of winters because 600 gallons of 78 degree water seemed to be enough thermal mass to take care of heating the room. 2-5 gallons of cold water dripped into 400 gallons of warm water over an hour probably won't turn those filter heaters on very often. I doubt 2-5 gallons of cold water dumped in all at once would turn your heaters on for long, if at all. To raise your bill ten bucks a month the drip would have to turn all your heaters on an extra few hours a day.
all i use is electric here, no gas. so a cold drip uses elec. too but it is still better than using elec for the drip plus for the hot water heater. since its summer and my filter is outside in an insulated box that i built, the heaters never turn on.(my pump and air pump add plenty of heat) when i first set up my tank my bill jumped about $15-$18 per month but thats including the AP 100 air pump and the 1hp pool pump.
It all probably depends on your ambient temps. My tank is in the basement where the temps hover in the high 60's and get colder when the A/C is running forcing heaters to run almost non stop. Our electric bills were in the high $200 ranger every month and higher in the summer months. They now run in the low $100 range, $150 at the highest. My natural gas bill is dirt cheap..~$30 a month. So each persons scenario may be vastly different depending on volume of water, ambient temps, kwh/cost vs gas cost.
i agree totally with above... my elec is from 180 -200 but i do not have a gas bill nor do i pay for water.. im on a well
