Power saving equipment?

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MattAquaBio

Aquarium Advice Freak
Joined
Jun 15, 2006
Messages
210
Location
north Georgia
I'm going to college, moving into a new apartment in the next couple of weeks. Paying for my car and car insurance, rent, and all of my bills. So what is the most electricity friendly equipment i can get, the lower my electric bill the better. (i'm furnishing a new tank for a friend of mine, 40 gallon). I need to be able to grow lowlight plants to btw. Thanks for the input guys.
 
Indirect sunlight has always worked for my low light plants (java moss and fern) as opposed to any proper lights. If it gets cold, wrap the tank in a towel or something else on the non-viewing sides to keep the heat in. Other than that, tanks don't really use too much energy.

For the most part, the aquarium is not where you will skimp on energy consumption. I think turning off the lights would have a bigger effect than changing out any of your equipment.
 
I'm with Roger, light will be the biggest money-burner in a planted tank, so any way you can get your light for free is a plus. Like Roger says indirect sunlight is great for keeping ow-light plants. Just don't put the tank in a window or other directly sunlit spot or you will be dealing with some interesting algae.

Depending on the type of fish you plan on keeping you may be able to run the tank without a heater. Tanks without heaters will generally equilibrate to ambient room temperature without heat from lights or other sources, so if your place stays around 75 degrees most of the year you can likely forgoe a heater, although I don't think they drink too much juice unless you've got a big tank in a cold room.
 
I figured the heater wouldnt be to bad on electricity since it isnt constantly running. Lighting shouldnt be a bad problem because its not a non-stop appliance. I just figured the filter and airstone would be a problem but i see your point. I suppose i'll just not worry about the difference the aquariums will make on the bill, it probably wouldnt be that much anyway.
Thanks guys.
 
Don't worry too much about your aquariums and your electric bill unless you are running powerful metal halide lighting.

Here's the breakdown I figured for my 58 gal tank. (I watched my heater for 15 minutes one winter night, and noticed that it was actually on for less than 1 minute of that time. So, proportionately, it is on for about 1.6 hours a day. In reality, this is probably a gross overestimate since my apartment is usually hot, and the heater is never on in the summer.)

Filter---------------------------25W x 24h = 600Wh/day
Air pump------------------------3W x 24h = 72 wh/day
Heater-----------------------300W x 1.6h = 480Wh/day
Lighting (3 25W bulbs)----------75W x 8h = 600Wh/day
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Total--------------------------------------- = 1752Wh/day = 1.75KWh/day
Per month(30 days)------------------------------------------52.6KWh/month

(For comparison, this is about the same as burning 3 x 100W light bulbs for 6 hours a day.)

I pay one of the highest electricity rates in the US ($0.208 per KWh), so my 58 gal tank costs me about $10.93 per month to run (52.6KWh x $0.208).

I figure that your 40 gal is going to cost you somewhere around $5 per month in electricity.
 
When living in a cold place with over 8 tanks and about 600gal of water to heat, i had a quarterly electricity bill that trippled to $500 smacko's.... now that i live in a brick house thats insulated it's about $360 a qtr.
 
Thanks QT i really appreciate that, i never woulda figured that out lol.
Trotty, lol smackos, thats the best word i've ever heard for money, i'm going to start using that from now on.
With insurance and tuition and car and rent payments and all the other billions of bills i was just tryin to save some money lol. Good thing my aquarium isnt expensive to run. Its pretty hot here, upper nineties outside so my tank pretty much runs heaterless lol. In the winter it will get colder obviously (being in Georgia), but my apartment is pretty well insulated so i'm not to worried about the extra power, besides, we have a wood burning fireplace.
Thanks everyone.
lol smackos....
 
Like others have said, the airpump and filter do run constantly but use very, very little electricity and are nothing to worry about financially.
 
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