Curious about how much power my tank actually uses??

[El_fishman616]

I wonder if it's possible to actually figure out how much power use-age your tank really uses? Is there and type of formal that you can use to find out? This comes from a conversation about thinking to upgrade to a 300 gallon from my 90 gallon and how much more it will cost on the electric bill with the GF.

 

[Bectan01]

All your equipment should have how many watts it draws written on it. Lights and heaters are easy but power heads, skimmers it should all be written on

 

[mr_X]

My 400 gallon system uses about 2100 watts at peak time. At night, 600 watts of light shuts down. That's four 120 watt LED fixtures over the DT and 1 over the refugium/frag area.
Water usage is another expense to figure in. It takes me probably 200 gallons of water to make 50 gallons of R.O.D.I. I change 50 gallons out a week and top off another 10 or so.

 

[Phranque]

Your power increase actually won't be much at all, especially if you're using LED or T5 lighting. Aside from a larger heater(s), some additional (larger) circulation pumps, larger skimmer, etc, all of which don't use much juice.
Mr. X does make a good point, however. A weekly 10% pwc on a 90 is 9 gallons........ on a 300, it's 30. Not only are you using roughly 3 times more RODI water, that's also 3 times more salt.

 

[MikeYQM]

Quite easy. Figure out wattage of each device, roughly how many hours each device uses then there are many online calculators to determine what that factors in to kilowatt hours. Then multiply that by your power companies rate if X$/kwh.