Aquariums and Electricity Bill
- Thread starter dbcb314
- Start date
Aquariumadvice.com is a safe site. I visit that forum daily and have never had an problems. You must have super paranoid antivirus programs. Mine has never popped up with any warnings.
Could be a java based deal.
Could be a java based deal.
legendaryfrog
Tactical Refreshment Action
To find out your monthly cost, add up all the wattage your aquarium would use in 24 hours.
For example:
300 watt lights on for 12 hours = 3600 watts
600 watt heater on 24/7. I wouldnt say they use 600 watts each hour as they constantly flip on and off, so I'll say 300 watts per hour, totaling to 7200 watts
Also, a 50 watt filter running 24/7, so in total (3600+7200+600) around 11500 watts. Note that these are very rough estimates.
Id take that number, and multiply it by 365 (days in a year)
Then,I would multiply that by .001.
Lastly, I would multiply that product by my town's price per kilo-watt/hour. (.15 cents)
That would be your yearly aquarium running cost. seems like a lot I bet, doesnt it? The above aquarium would cost around 650 dollars to operate.
For example:
300 watt lights on for 12 hours = 3600 watts
600 watt heater on 24/7. I wouldnt say they use 600 watts each hour as they constantly flip on and off, so I'll say 300 watts per hour, totaling to 7200 watts
Also, a 50 watt filter running 24/7, so in total (3600+7200+600) around 11500 watts. Note that these are very rough estimates.
Id take that number, and multiply it by 365 (days in a year)
Then,I would multiply that by .001.
Lastly, I would multiply that product by my town's price per kilo-watt/hour. (.15 cents)
That would be your yearly aquarium running cost. seems like a lot I bet, doesnt it? The above aquarium would cost around 650 dollars to operate.
THEJRC
Third String Messiah?
This is pretty much the standard calculation but theres a lot of guesswork and yes it is ballpark. Keep in mind that watt ratings on most items are RMS and the actual usage fluctuates, your lighting and heaters will probably stay closer to the rating but without an ampmeter clamped to your power cords theres really no true way to tell.
to further add confusion power companies have a habit of fluctuating prices through the year, equipment will deviate from the norm given voltage and heat fluctuations, and so on. Where I'm at our utilities do the subsidised pricing so they average over a years time and grade on a curve. A nice way to do it I think since I also tend to go overboard with christmas lights and being an IT consultant servers and other equipment is transient in the office.
You can typically offset most of the cost of your tank with simple habit change, turning lights off that are usually on in empty rooms and swapping out incandescent bulbs for the little flourescents you can buy at home depot in 4 packs for around $8. The flourescant replacement recommended to replace a 60 watt bulb runs around 14 watts so you can calculate offset in much the same way...
Thinking in those terms every 60 watt bulb you replace (running 8 hours a day at a yearly cost of $26.28 using the $0.15 a year baseline) is going to save you $19.71 a year (using same calculations it operates at $6.57 a year).
Power conditioning as well is a nice method to help cut costs, not only does equipment last longer when the supply is clean (constant sine wave and voltage regulated) but a lot of things end up using more juice (startup capacitors, etc) when power dips or surges.
Without getting into hard core electronics -- Watt ratings are typically stated as RMS meaning a calculation done using power factor (average over time) since true wattage assumes that everything is always in phase. Thinking amps * voltage = wattage assume how this number changes as your voltage strays from 115 constantly. By keeping these in check you can not only reduce wear and guesswork but you can also reduce power draw as the electronics in ballasts and such do not need to fight so often to start / keep current static.
Almost any good UPS will do a good amount of power conditioning for you and has the added benefit of keeping your equipment running during power failure as well as protecting against lightning strike and surge.
God love what you learn through datacenter design! next week we'll cover BTU and tackling environment control in a small room full of hot equipment.....
i dont think its that hard to find out. they sell plug ins that measure your KW per hour consumption. they are like 20-30 or so. leave it on the tank for a couple days and you should know.
is the calculator working? because all it tells me is "$0" even if I put in false, large numbers.
and I think some people are in denial about "i have so and so tanks and my bill is the same" lol.
you have a filter running 24/7, if you have an air pump thats 24/7, lights on about 12 hours, who knows how long the heater is on (a ton in the tank in my apartment... its ****ing set to like 88 degrees).
I use one of these:
Kill-O-Watt meter
You can run a large tank pretty inexpensively. My 150 uses an air powered undergravel filter. The air pump uses one watt. Stocking cool water fish the tank uses no heater. It has a home made light that uses T8 bulbs powered with an electronic ballast. The light consumes 27 watts and is on for ~8 hours a day.
1 watt x 24 hours x 30 days x .001 = .72 kwhr/month for the air pump.
27 watts x 8 hours x 30 days x .001 = 6.48 kwhr/month for the light.
(6.48 + .72) x $0.12/kwhr = $0.86/month
Not too bad!
Kill-O-Watt meter
You can run a large tank pretty inexpensively. My 150 uses an air powered undergravel filter. The air pump uses one watt. Stocking cool water fish the tank uses no heater. It has a home made light that uses T8 bulbs powered with an electronic ballast. The light consumes 27 watts and is on for ~8 hours a day.
1 watt x 24 hours x 30 days x .001 = .72 kwhr/month for the air pump.
27 watts x 8 hours x 30 days x .001 = 6.48 kwhr/month for the light.
(6.48 + .72) x $0.12/kwhr = $0.86/month
Not too bad!
