electricity cost

[candie_cutie]

I am looking into getting a 55 gallon tank, does anyone know about how much it would add to an electric bill?

[famman]

about $1 per month
maybe less.

[candie_cutie]

oh, I thought it would be a lot more. Thank you.

[RTR]

That really depend on the tank setup. If you run multiple filters (I do) and use plants (4x40W NO fluorescents on my 55), I promise you it will be higher than $1.00 per month.

4x40W x 12 hours x 30 days= 57600 watt hours, or 57.6 kilowatt hours. I pay $0.065 per KWH, so 57.6 x 0.065 = $3.74 per month for the lights alone, ignoring the ballast factor (my units are old, so an additional 15-20%) and the filters, and the heater if you need such. But you can calculate based on the power usage of your own equipment.

[morleyz]

If you have to pay for your water...

I've found that my water bill has been affected more than my electric bill, and I run several tanks.

[somefinnfishy]

my bill is over 200 a month summer and winter.
Your heater is the worst a 250w heater running 1/2 the time costs some money also the filters are not that bad.
But on the other hand a 55 with twin 15W lights and goldfish (heaterless)and a AC 500 (the compitition EMP 400 uses more elect)you might stay in that buck a month range.
BTW If you have a well you will pay good to pump all that extra water.Also will fill your septic tank faster also:rolleyes:

[DarthV]

Well most HOB filters probably only chew through 15watts at most... I think my fluval 304 is somewhere around 25watts...so filters are going to be adding very little to your power bill. Lighting and heat is where the money will be spent. All depends on how much lighting you use and how much work your heater is doing to keep your temp.

[OrionGirl]

I plan about a $25/month increase in expenses with each new tank that goes up. Of course, there are lots of things you can do to control costs. The lighting for our systems (SW/planted FW) is the bigfie, so we run them on timers. This means the lights are not left on if we run late. My house is usually within 10 degrees of where we want the tanks to be, which means the heaters don't run all that much.

On the plus side--we haven't had to run a humidifier in 4 years. :D

[candie_cutie]

Thanks for all the info everyone. I used a calculator on another site and found that it would be around 4 dollars a month extra. Now, I don't know how accurate the calculator is, but that's not too bad.

[SamsonNY]

That's not bad at all!

I did my calculations a while back (don't have them handy right now) and the monthly electrical for the tank was at $70 minimum (the heater was the uncertainty factor; I don't really know how often it turns on).

I wish I lived near RTR since my KWH starts at $0.17 (for first preset amount of usage) and drops to $0.12. Thank you LIPA :mad:

A quick rundown from what I remember:
180 W lights 10 hours / day x 30 / 1000 x .15 (averaging it) = $8
400 W pump 24 hours / day " " = $43
36 W UV 24 hours / day " " = $4
$55 / month for the above.

Then:
Air pumps, Ph Monitor, ballasts, etc. (Not much)
BUT, 1,000 W and 300 W heaters??

[famman]

gosh, for my 55 gal I use 110 watt cf, an 8 watt canister filter and a 300 watt heater that gets used maybe 1/10 of the time and no UV.

a 400 watt pump sounds like a bit large for a hobby tank, maybe it's 40 watts.

55gal
8watts/hr X 24 X 30 = 5.76kwh = $.80 or so
110watts/hr X 8 X 30 = 26.4kwh = $4
300watt/hr X 2 X 30 = 18kwh = $2

So I get maybe $6/month, ok so it's not $1. I did a similiar calc for my 20gal and got maybe $2, so I'm optomistic.

good luck
:)

[SamsonNY]

I wish it was 40 but, no it's 400 (actually, 391 watts per hour, to be exact.) It's the Iwaki MD100RLT. It runs the whole show so I wanted to make certain I had a workhorse.

[famman]

Well but yeah, you've got some fancy schmancy 400 gallon tank there. I'm not sure your calculations are relevant to the average hobbyist. For the Monterey Aquarium or the Aquarium of the Pacific maybe. I'm half afraid a 400 gallon setup would crack the concrete slab my house sits on. Maybe would should do a kWh calculation per gallon and see what curve falls out.

fabulous ray tank BTW.

good luck
:)

[SamsonNY]

Concrete slab? The tank is upstairs in my bedroom. :p (J/K).

And, thanks.
:cool: