Electric bill and Mother In Law??

[KDodds]

2x250W = 500W or 0.5kW

At a rate of 6.5¢ per kW/hr, running your lights 12 hours per day would result in a daily bill of 39¢. In a 30 day month that's $11.70 added to the bill only for the lights.

Try running 3 1kW pumps 24/7/

[Tava176]

I calculated mine using a calcuator (like the one posted on page 1) and mine costs 38.00 a month. My 2 freshwater ones only cost 12.00 a month combined!!!

It is possible for it to cost 1/3 if you are running MH.

[Dave 32]

I say if you want to play your going to pay my electric bill is unreal I pay as I go and one month it's 900 next month it's 200 then 600 I'd have to say it probably averages around 550 I'm in a 2400 sq ft ranch two people I swear my neighbors’ are connected to my house. I run power compacts (7) and 3 mag pumps. I agree LIPA has us bent over a oil barrel. But we build these crazy set up and want them to be cheap who are we kidding as we get addicted and start dreaming of bigger set up we are our worst enemy. It's like building a race car and wanting to run regular gas.

[chucksta1]

Allow me to muddy the waters..

Frist law of thermodynamics:

Heat is light and light is heat.

Therefore all heat produced by your tank ( and there is an absolute conversion rate in BTU's ) will result in a lowering of the energy costs associated with heat. If the electrical cost has risen by $75.00 , then the cost of heating the dwelling must have dropped.

G'won, ask for your rebate, I dare 'ya.

Seriously. if the house isn't heated by electricity, what was last December's usage in Kilowatt hours? What's this December's? If all other things are equal, the only difference would be from the tank.

[NYFrank]

Dave we r on the plan where u pay a set amount each month so it dont go up and down. But now I am thinking of a way to run just the lites on a solar panel.

Chuck U bought up a good point about the lite and heat. And yes I have not had to turn the oil burner on nearley as much during the day- I now dred the thought of the of running the ac in the summer. Like I said we r the working poor.

[sterling18]

How many solar panels do you think we will need to run our tanks. lol considering how much power they eat.

[zangler]

http://www.thinkgeek.com/gadgets/electronic/7657/

that will solve your problem

[Pandora]

Originally posted by chucksta1
Allow me to muddy the waters..

Frist law of thermodynamics:

Heat is light and light is heat.

Therefore all heat produced by your tank ( and there is an absolute conversion rate in BTU's ) will result in a lowering of the energy costs associated with heat. If the electrical cost has risen by $75.00 , then the cost of heating the dwelling must have dropped.

G'won, ask for your rebate, I dare 'ya.

Seriously. if the house isn't heated by electricity, what was last December's usage in Kilowatt hours? What's this December's? If all other things are equal, the only difference would be from the tank.

chuck, I know your point is about conservation of energy, but I think you know that heat does not = light. Some light is hotter than others depending on wavelength, and the amount converted to heat will vary. So while lights might slightly heat the ambient temp of the room, it's not like they would work as a 500 W heater would. Certainly not enough to balance things out and lower your heating needs by an equivilent $75 worth a month.

Frank, back when I had roommates and lived in a house where we split utilities, I got my first reef tank. First bill did jump by close to $50, and I wasn't using halides (using 440 W of VHO), plus this was years ago before many of the energy price hikes. So I don't think it's improbable it's mostly the tank. Ended up having to work out where I would pay more in utilities than the rest of the house.

[Anemonebuff]

Originally posted by NYFrank
Anyone from Long Island NY feel like putting their 2 cents in?? Please feel free

It is possible. I probably pay about that much a month for my tank. Long Island has the second highest electric rates in the US, next to Maui. We pay about 18 cents a KWH with LIPA(thieves) and there is a increased fuel price adjustment as well(which is illegal, but they do it anyway).

BOHICA- Bend Over Here It Comes Again.

[Anemonebuff]

Your Mother in law may be adding in some of the cost of the increased fuel price charge. My balanced billing went from $214 a month to $260 a month. My home heating oil is up 30 cents a gallon. The taxes here are rediculous as well. I pay $11,000 a year in property taxes. Like I said BOHICA. Seven years to retire, and off to somewhere cheaper.

[Reeforbust]

Mother-in-laws.............

[jay24k]

My electric bill this month was about 170 dollars. My tank alone is about 54 dollars a month for my 180. So 1/3 is my tank roughly. Compare to mine and you should be able to tell.

I run the following
750 watts MH - Electronic ballast 7 hrs
320 watts VHO - 12 hrs
2 SEIO - 1500 and 1100 - 24/7
Iwaki 40XLRT 24/7
ASM G3 Skimmer 24/7
Fuge light approx 25 watt 12 hrs
No heater needed
2 little fans which don't add much.

Also factor in the heat from your tank is cooled by your house which costs more but in the winter you save.

[Loralie]

My energy bill was $100 in the summer.....is now running $250. I am thinking one of those wind generator things in my yard might be a good idea

[Anemonebuff]

525 watts MH-8 hours
80 watts NO actinics -10 hours
300 watt titanium heater
ASM G3 skimmer-24/7
Tunze Stream 6000, maxi jet 1200, Penguin 300gph, and Mag 18(Return)-24/7. Plan on adding another maxijet I have on hand.

[alten78]

sheesh im officially scared to get my 75 started now. my 29 hex cost me maybe 15 bucks a month...then again my kWh = $.05 ish.

[DrBDC]

You have to plug in your electric company rate. In Ca it will be much higher. In MO we pay about .045 so ours is much lower.

[grupper]

OK,

You have:

2 * 250 W = 500 W Metal Halide
2 * 56 W = 112 W T-5

Total lights = 612 W.

I'll assume a 12 hr light period.

12 * 612 = 7344 W-hrs.

You also have:
180 W pump
18 W UV light

198 W of power that always in use. (Note: I suspect that the 180W rating on your pump is a maximum rating, and the pump may not actually be using that much power, but I have no idea what its really using, so I'll just use the number you gave.)

24 hrs * 198 W = 4752 W-hrs.

total power used per day = 7344 + 4752 = 12096 W-hrs.

1 kW = 1000W.

total power used per day = 12.1 kW-hrs.

30.5 days per month.

30.5 * 12.1 = 368.2 kW-hrs per month.

Someone said that Long Island has an electric rate of $0.18 per kW-hr.

So total electric is:

.18 * 368.2 = $66.27



As for solar panels, the cheapest thing is probably to try and use something like the solatubes and bring use natural sunlight to light the tank instead of trying to convert sunlight into electricity and then back into light. I think you'll find that a 500W solar panel is rather expensive.


Also, all of the electricity that you use on your tank will eventually be turned into heat. However, where I live, my electricity runs around $0.09 per kW-hr, and my natural gas run around $0.04 per kW-hr. The reason why we heat our homes with something other then electricity is because the other energy is much cheaper at producing heat. This relationship is preatty much fixed by the second law of thermodynamics.

[grupper]

Oops, I forgot, a lot of the heat that goes into our tanks eventually goes into evaporating some water. So, there isn't a one-to-one correspondence between the energy that we put into our tanks, and the energy needed to heat/cool our house.

[NYFrank]

Well guys thats a lot of info for me to pounder over till I get the next bill I have owned the house less then a year so I did not know of any "fuel surcharge" from LIPA. I will have to send them some hate mail next and take a closer look at my bill.
thanks grupper for laying out the math for me (not a high point on my end). I will have to figure out the numbers and see how close that is to yours.
The tank is preaty though but and extra $1200+ a year here on LI is gonna hurt. Anybody wanna by a tank

[Diego]

2cents of an ex-LI'er:
Maybe mom's got the grow room!

[PRC]

All hope is not lost. I cut the electric bill on my tank significantly by switching to more efficient equipment. At $0.18/kWhr you'll recoup the cost of new equipment pretty quickly. First get the smallest return pump you can, you don't need to move much water through your sump. Something like an Iwaki 20 will probably be fine for a 140. Get all your water movement from efficient powerheads like Seio's or Tunzes. Then ditch the UV altogether. If your still after more then sell those MH's and get 3-4 more T5's and an Icecap. All this will probably cut your bill by more than 50%.

[NYFrank]

I thought you needed the MH for the Acros I plan to get in a few month as the tank becomes more established. This was why I got them to begin with. Also I have the tank on the 2nd floor (where we live) which is why I had to get the larger pump. I may combine some stuff in the sump to the return line to get ride of some of the other pumps for a start.

[PRC]

Actually, lots of people grow acros under T5's. I know of a couple coral farmers around here that use them exclusively. I have six 80W T5's on my 220 and I need to trim my acros pretty regularly to keep them from growing into each other and my other corals. You may not be able to keep actos at the bottom of your tank but there's a lot of other things you can put down there anyway.
By my guesses your lights are running you around $40/mo and your return pump (Mag 9.5?) is running you around $12/mo. You'll probably want to focus on the lights.
If you ran 4 x 54W T5's on Icecap 430 ballasts (overdrives the T5's at ~80W I think) and you run 2 bulbs Blue+ and Aqua) for 12 hrs and 2 (GE Daylight) for 10hrs it should cut your lighting cost to ~$20/mo.
Is your sump on the first floor? That's the only reason you'd need a larger pump. How far is it (vertically) from the sump to the highest point in the return plumbing or the surface of the water in the tank if the return goes in through a bulkhead?

[NYFrank]

Yes its a first floor sump, actually in the basement. so its coming up 2 stories. The vertical is almost 18' I do plan to have the acros only at the top to about 12" down anyway. Do I have to use Ice Caps? They are a little up there in $$$ I will look into the T5's Thanks

[techigirl78]

I always thought the snake was the cheap pet, only a mouse every other week. But $28 a mnth for electricity? WOW!