Do you know how much it costs/month to run your tank?

[redemer123]

today my fish tank was pinned on the high electricity bill so that made me wonder how much my tank was actually costing to run/month. the total came out to about $36 to run my 120. so if any of you ever wondered how to figure out the costs of your tank just do these few easy steps.

1. Total up the watts per day for the item to get total watts/day.
2. Divide total watts/day by 1000 to get the total kilowatt hours (Kwh) per day.
3. Multiply the Kwh/day times the cost per Kwh to get your total cost/day.
4. To find out the average total cost per month, multiply the total cost/day by 30. (Power company monthly billing cycles vary from 28-33 days)

here is the equipment I run 24-7
heater = 100w
AI modules = 75w*2
Ocean runner 3000 return pump = 65w
Sedra 2500 skimmer pump = 25w
Mp40 powerhead = 28w

the total comes out at 368watts
so now you want to calculate the amount you consume per day simple multiply by 24 hours
368w*24 hours =8832w/day

now you take the watts per day and divide by 1000 to get the kilowatt hours which for me should come out to
8.8kwh.

then just multiply the kilowatt hours by your power companys rate, ours is $0.14/kwh
which should come out to about $1.20 to run/day for my tank
then multiply by 30 to get the total about monthly which came out to $36.95/month.

of course it wont be exact because some things like the lights and heaters dont actually run full capacity 24-7 but its a good estimate of how much your tank actually costs to run monthly hope this helps, im actually a little curious to see how much its costs some of our members with multiple tanks or very large tanks! :)

[jimsflies]

Or you can use this:
Captive Reefs - Electrical Cost Calculator (http://www.captivereefs.com/forum/electrical-cost-calculator.html)

Located at the bottom left corner of every page on CR... :)

[larryandlaura]

Lol nice Jim. My tank runs about $60 a month on electricity.

[redemer123]

i just got shot down...lol

[Heidi]

$30 for electricity
$10 for water
$10 saltmix
$5 fish food
$12 additives
$5 superglue
all equaling about $72 give or take ;)
but the the entertainment my family and I get from it is priceless!

[bluwc]

$30 for electricity
$10 for water
$10 saltmix
$5 fish food
$12 additives
$5 superglue
all equaling about $72 give or take ;)
but the the entertainment my family and I get from it is priceless!
I don't even want to know...but I figure about $100 a mth. Since setting up the cube and the 60g, it's about 100 more a month on my bill.....so I'm just assuming.

[AZDesertRat]

Frys Electronics has Kill A Watt meters on sale all the time for $15. Plug the tank in to one of those and you can get an exact amount of energy it uses and if you have the upgraded Kill A Watt it even calculates costs and other usage patterns.
I bought one 5 years ago when I added a chiller and 3 years ago sold the chiller in favor of fans.
I also found my lighting was the main culprit so converted to LED 3 months ago and cut my tanks electric usage by $50 a month. It does not take long to pay for LED with savings like that especially when I sold my MH/VHO retro for $200 to help with the cost of the new lights.

[jimsflies]

i just got shot down...lol

Sorry not shot down...just trying to help. :cower:

Good topic though. I researched my current equipment on my 29 biocube and came up with the numbers below... ~$8/month. :)

http://i1119.photobucket.com/albums/k621/jimsflies/energy-costs.jpg

http://i1119.photobucket.com/albums/k621/jimsflies/electrical-costs2.jpg

[Manoj's Reef]

My next big investment will be lights. Not sure which one to buy....

[redemer123]

yup i have LED's i like them :)

[luisgo]

The Kill a Watt electricity meter can measure usage of any equipment connected to it. Not only will give you usage in watts but also the cost of running the equipment per hour, day, week and annually. It cost me $40. I always wanted to know the power cost of my 125 gallon reef tank and this was the correct tool to do it.

http://img5.imageshack.us/img5/5638/2009090511s.jpg (http://img5.imageshack.us/i/2009090511s.jpg/)

Here is how I determined thecost to run my tank.

First step is to plug the meter to the electric outlet. Once connected, it will give you the voltage which was close to 120 volts.

http://img5.imageshack.us/img5/8538/2009090516s.jpg (http://img5.imageshack.us/i/2009090516s.jpg/)

[luisgo]

Next step was to review my electric power bill which gives me the monthly kilowatt cost for the last year. The average of the last 12 months was 19c. Electricity cost in Puerto Rico is a little higher that in continental US. Then the cost was entered in the meter in order to obtain the correct measurement.

I started to connect all my tank equipment one by one to measure the annual power cost. Equipments that run 24/7 were easy to determine. For the lights an estimate was determined based on the time they are on. The must difficult was the chiller. The on-off cycle is different during the year depending on the season. My chiller is off for around four months from November to February. I estimated that 10% of the time the chiller was on on the average for my computation.

http://img169.imageshack.us/img169/4192/2009090531s.jpg (http://img169.imageshack.us/i/2009090531s.jpg/)

These are the results of the estimated annual power cost for each equipment in my 125 gallon reef tank.

[luisgo]

Power heads Koralia #1 - $9.98 X 2 = $19.96
Power head Koralia #2 - $18.30
Little Giant 4MDQ-SC 810 GPH pump - $144.00
Aquaclear 402 PH sump (backup UPS) - $14.97
Power head Maxijet behind the rock structure - $20.80 X 2 = $41.60
Sicce pump skimmer SWC Xtreme 200 - $39.94
Pump calcium reactor Ecoplus - $38.28
Metal halide 2 175w (8 hours) - $213.00
VHO 2 160w (10 hours) - $157.00
Fans for the Light fixture - $31.62 x 2 = $63.24
Light for mangroves - spiral fluorescent, 26w/100w 5K Satco (24h) - $39.94
Light chaeto algae - ecosmart 75w (24h) - $28.29
Chiller Current USA Tower 1/4hp - $44.90
Other miscellaneous equipments like the moonlights and Co2 tank solenoid were not measured.

The total annual cost to run my tank was $863.42, including other miscellaneous equipments is more or less $875.00. That is $72.92 monthly or $2.40 daily.

That is a little more than what I expected. Very interesting tool for those that want to know their tank power cost. It can also be used for any kind of appliance

[pjr]

Using a big pump to push water from a basement sump to a display tank on the main floor can run from $50 to $100 per month! A pair of 250w halides will run $30 to $40 per month. Add actinics, heaters, skimmers, and other devises and tanks can really pull wattage.

[binford4000]

My next big investment will be lights. Not sure which one to buy....

Swing by and you'll see the AI's in action.You'll have your mind made up easy peasy lol

[sjnovakovich]

Holy Cow!!!

I have 5 freswater tanks and I'm getting ready to start a 28 gal. reef. Without the reef I'm spending $132/month. I gotta figure out a way to cut back!!!