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!