Power bills

[Liam]

I am running 12 tanks, that includes lights, filters, heaters, pumps, etc. My power bill did not increase drastically. IMO you need to find other sources to cut down on. AC, electric heat, all the lights in the house on.....just my opinion.

It's just my parents who think the fishtanks are consuming a lot of power

 

[Liam]

Actually to get the amps, you divide the watts by the volts. Just a little algebra on that original equation:

Watts = amps x volts

Watts/volts = amps

Since your power company charges by the kilowatt (1000 watts), it is more convenient to consider the power in terms of watts. For your lights, multiply the watts by the number of hours that you run them per day. If you run them six hours, then your daily consumption would be 40 x 6 = 100 watts for the lights. The pump/filter's daily consumption is 22 x 24 =524 watts. Then your total would be 625 watts. (Do you use heaters?) Monthly your total would be 625 x 30 = 18750 watts or 18.8 kW.

I use heaters, but I was too lazy to it out of my tank to see what the watts were.

so, just found our power bill and it costs 14 cents a kilowatt... so, I know for a fact that my fish tank is not causing all the high power bills. I leave my tank's light on for about 12-13 hours a day.

soo, according to my findings my tank is using about 2 cents a day worth of power (aprox) we're charged every three months so. 30 or so days a month, so, $3.60 x by 3 months, so $10.80 is coming from my fish tank.

 

[Tongue33]

Did you show your parents that

 

[Knowdafish]

It's just my parents who think the fishtanks are consuming a lot of power

Times never change! My parents said the same thing in the 70's!

To keep my dad off my back I paid 1/2 their electric bill. I had 7 tanks in my fish room back then. It cost me a whopping $15 a month!

 

[Liam]

Did you show your parents that

Times never change! My parents said the same thing in the 70's!

To keep my dad off my back I paid 1/2 their electric bill. I had 7 tanks in my fish room back then. It cost me a whopping $15 a month!

Mum's now saying we don't have enough room in the house for a extra tank

BUT I WILL CRACK THEM! be it mentally or physically ..

I might pay the 20 or so bucks every three months for my fishtanks power bills. oh yeah, my heater is 300 watts soo every three hours my heater uses one kilowatt, so 12 cents, 24 divided by 3 is 8, so 8 kilowatts every day 8 x 30 = 240 x 3 = 720 kilowatts 720 x 12 = $86.40

The heater is a killer.. what is the bear minimum of watts on a heater for a 75 gal?

 

[Israel2004]

Your heater is not running 24 hours a day. There's an average that people use for figuring how power heaters are using in 24 hours. Which is totally slipping my mind right now.

 

[Pharaoh]

That 300W heater is not running continuously as previously stated. In most cases a bigger heater will reduce how often it is on. So there is a trade off between heaters.
Smaller - lower wattage, run longer to heat tank.
Larger - higher wattage, run less to heat tank.

But to answer your question, you could probably get away with a 100 to 150W heater in your 75 as long as its inside.

 

[CHOMPERS]

The amount of electricity used to heat the tank is going to be the same whether it is heated with a 100W or 300W heater. Because of equilibrium, the energy into the tank is equal to the energy out of the tank. The heat loss is dependent on the difference between the tank temperature and the room temperature. The lower your tank temp is, the less electricity it will use.

To calculate your usage, you will need to stay around your tank for an entire heater cycle. You will need to time the length of time that the heater is off and how long it is on. Then using that ratio, you can calculate how much power it is consuming throughout the day.

 

[Bderick67]

Ok, results are

Light uses 40 watts 220/240V 50Hz = 9600 amps?
Filter uses 22 watts 220/240V 50Hz = 5280 amps?

and I did the average of 5 different air pumps and the result is
3 watts 240 volts so 720 amps.

too lazy to do the LEDs

so, just found out we're charged in kilowatts, so my fishtank is consuming 62 watts an hour, so it'd take me 16 hours and 15 mins roughly to consume a kilowatt

If you are using fluoresent lighting you'll need to get the info off the ballast inside the lighting fixture. Most likely you are drawing about .5 amp with that light.

 

[CHOMPERS]

...Most likely you are drawing about .5 amp with that light.

He just didn't do the math right. The Watts is what counts. It is actually drawing .18A.