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Tank Electricity Costs – Especially Heaters


punman
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In Calgary many bills for electricity also include water (and sewer). For example, my April bill was $199.93 but when I examine it closely, $107.67 + GST was the electrical part. We pay monthly, maybe some areas pay every two months.

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Most months it is just Estimated. In about Jan. they come out and read the meters and ouch, here comes the big bill..lol

Like I said our's was over $800.00 , but we live in the country and do have animals to look after. Also we know that Jan. will be a big bill so we try to prepay ahead so it is not such a big shock to the bank account. Also jan was alot colder it seem to me . So more power was used.Also found that when a water tank gets low on water and the stock heater is hanging in mid air they tend to really eat up the power. Heck they will even get so hot that they will burn up. Lesson here is , Always check, Kids do not always do as they say.. But they were right , the horses still had water.

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Most months it is just Estimated. In about Jan. they come out and read the meters and ouch, here comes the big bill..lol

Like I said our's was over $800.00 , but we live in the country and do have animals to look after. Also we know that Jan. will be a big bill so we try to prepay ahead so it is not such a big shock to the bank account. Also jan was alot colder it seem to me . So more power was used.Also found that when a water tank gets low on water and the stock heater is hanging in mid air they tend to really eat up the power. Heck they will even get so hot that they will burn up. Lesson here is , Always check, Kids do not always do as they say.. But they were right , the horses still had water.

If you really want to avoid HUGE energy bills 1. Change to CFL 2.Check your power meter Monthly and report the numbers to your power company. If you call them the customer service person can usually tell you how. I know Epcore does for me and my energy bills are about thirty to fourty dollars a month for electricity and I have my computer running almost 24/7

One more thing about fish tanks and filters and everything that i haven't figured out is if it says it' s 5 watts does that mean it uses three times less power than a 15 watt CFL? I'm still learning about volts and watts and kwh's so any additional help would be nice.

My Elite in tank filter says it's 3.5 watts combined with my 2.0 watt air pump then that makes about 6 watts total running 24/7 and an additional 15 watts for the light (which i would have on anyway) eight to twelve hours a day. From what i have read so far if i were to run a 40 watt light bulb all day every day it wouldn't cost more than a few bucks.

It's amazing how much power is wasted because of a little red light here, a small blue one there, Playstation on standby, Computer in sleep, equipment not unplugged(COMPUTER SUBWOOFER FOR SPEAKERS OUCH) Put your entire computer system on a surge protected power bar and click that button off every time you shut down the computer you'll save load and protect your computer while your at it. Get a power bar and use it to shut other things down too like your TV before bed and i'm sure that'll help. Try it i DARE YOU.

I wish i could help lower keeping animals cost but i don't have any and wouldn't know where to start. There is also allways the Solar heat and power option.

I'm new at this so if i'm off topic i apologise but i'm not sure if i'm supposed to stick to commenting on the original topic or continue allong the thread to the newest message and use that as a starting point. and also when my comment becomes to much and should be in it's own subject line. If i make mistakes please let me know and i'll eventually learn and get it right.

Thanks

L

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Yes - 5 W will be three times less than 15 W

Pick an appliance. Figure out how many hours a month that appliance is on. Multiply by the wattage - like 15 Watts. Divide that by 1000 and multiply by your cost per kilowatt hr (should be on your bill). That will give you the monthly cost.

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  • 3 months later...
  • 4 weeks later...

Nice to know that my 65 gal tank and all its equipment suck up far less then my high end gaming PC or airconditioner. Those two Navidia 8800 graphics cards can suck up 700 watts if you really crank the graphics settings on the game or PC.

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  • 6 months later...

l'm tring to battle the energy serge as well for a year now. 1 year ago I was paying $4.00 a day now its $6.75 a day the worst was $8.50 a day. I'm tring to get below $5.00 a day. I understade the price for Electricity is higher, but my usage is way higher then it was. I cut the lights, heaters, power heads on my tanks changed most house lights to cfl. Not much more I can do the only thing next would be the computer it's still on 24/7. Thanks for the heater break down I guess i'll turn the heat back on the tanks.

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Well, Just put up another 12 tanks and were trying to figure out how much electricity will cost. With 6 tanks running before, our power bill ranged from $130-$150 per month. I don't think thats too bad since there are 2 computers on 24/7 in the house. Hopefully It doesn't jump too high. Under gravel filters on all the tanks( which surprisingly seem to be working quite well) so that will lower the costs a bit. Also we have 11 lights spanning over 16 tanks. So that minimized 5 lights.

With the calculation of $6/tank/month, i should be paying $108 a month for the tanks. I don't think it has jumped quite that high but only time will tell.

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It's amazing how much power is wasted because of a little red light here, a small blue one there, Playstation on standby, Computer in sleep, equipment not unplugged(COMPUTER SUBWOOFER FOR SPEAKERS OUCH) Put your entire computer system on a surge protected power bar and click that button off every time you shut down the computer you'll save load and protect your computer while your at it. Get a power bar and use it to shut other things down too like your TV before bed and i'm sure that'll help. Try it i DARE YOU.

I agree with Ishkabod, many things guzzle electricity from just being plugged in. tvs, computers, speakers, fridge, freezer, the power cord to plug your vehicle in - just because they are not being used does not mean they are not using electricity.

Also remember what Punman said in the first post:

"All heaters were set for 77-78 F and room temperature in all rooms was 70-71 F so we are looking at 7 degrees heating (about 4 degrees C) above room temperature. All heaters but one were Ebo-Jagers (the other a Visi-Therm). All were installed in the upright position."

Different heaters have different efficiency levels as well.

Try putting a wattage gauge (or whatever it is called) on your tanks (and other places around the house) to see where you are losing power.

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i'm running a 110G and a 25G in the same room as my computer right now. The Epcor bill doubled a few months afte the tanks were setup and around the same time i switched all the bulbs in the house to CFL...?

The only thing i can think of is adding an undergound 3-6 tech cable to my garage to provide a 60A subpanel...it was installed before the bill went up and i even did some constant welding for a week but what i'm thinking is that the cable being in thefrozen ground is causing an electrical draw somehow. Im going to change it down to two 30A circuts so i can switch one off when not welding (dont need 220V for aything else) and see if that helps...otherwise the tanks may end up with a target on them again!

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i'm running a 110G and a 25G in the same room as my computer right now. The Epcor bill doubled a few months afte the tanks were setup and around the same time i switched all the bulbs in the house to CFL...?

The only thing i can think of is adding an undergound 3-6 tech cable to my garage to provide a 60A subpanel...it was installed before the bill went up and i even did some constant welding for a week but what i'm thinking is that the cable being in thefrozen ground is causing an electrical draw somehow. Im going to change it down to two 30A circuts so i can switch one off when not welding (dont need 220V for aything else) and see if that helps...otherwise the tanks may end up with a target on them again!

You can try lowering the temp of the tanks (if it won't hurt the fish). I put 2"-3"Styrofoam on the back of my heated tanks - it does help a bit. A lid will also trap heat. I still say try the wattage meter (or whatever it is called), you can't know anything for certain until you get one.

I noticed the price of electricity went up the last 2-3 months here, increased about $50 as they finally read the meter - plugging in cars in cold weather doesn't help much either.

But we are hijacking this thread, perhaps open a new thread titled "what is causing my electricity bill to increase?", then I can answer freely without the guilt of posting in someone else's thread. ;)

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  • 6 months later...

Fascinating discussion. Did you know though that you can borrow from the Calgary Public Library a Wattmeter. Since items like the heater are going on and off, this item would be a great tool for getting a daily or weekly read out.

“These meters, donated by ENMAX Power, are consumer devices used to measure the quality and quantity of electricity that everyday household appliances use. Plug the meter into an electrical socket and plug an appliance into the Kill-A-Watt to determine the energy consumption by the kilowatt hour. Not only is this resource a great educational tool to learn about energy conservation, the Kill-A-Watt may also help you predict your monthly energy bill and pinpoint power hungry devices in your home.” CPL

Tank Electrical Costs – Especially Heaters

Note – If you don’t want to read through all of this, just skip down to the second last paragraph.

I have seen posts where people want to know the cost of running their tanks for a month. Lighting is easy because the wattage is listed on the lamps and we can estimate the hours per day that the lamps are on. Filters are on continually so it is just a matter of checking the specs for the filter wattage.

The trickier part is the heater because it goes off and on. I tried watching my heater in my 45 gallon tank while I worked at the computer. I tried to record the time it went off and on for two hours. Sometimes I’d miss it though and would have to estimate. I came up with ON 22% of the time.

I have 5 tanks so I needed a better idea. Over two weeks I randomly walked by the tanks and checked off on a piece of paper if the heater was on or off. I tried to do it randomly, not every 10 minutes in case a heater was running say, an 8 min. off, 2 min. on cycle. I did this about a 100 times over many days but it took less time than sitting watching a tank for two hours. The 45 gallon tank was on 20.3% of the time so I feel my method was fairly accurate. The chart below shows my results.

180 gal. – 250 W heater = 1.4 W/gal. On 31.4% Cost per month is $5.21

90 gal. – 250 W heater = 2.8 W/gal. On 35.6% Cost per month is $5.91

45 gal. – 200 W heater = 4.4 W/gal. On 20.3% Cost per month is $2.70

33 gal. – 150 W heater = 4.5 W/gal. On 36.4% Cost per month is $3.63

23 gal. – 50 W heater = 2.2 W/gal. On 100% Cost per month is $3.32

All heaters were set for 77-78 F and room temperature in all rooms was 70-71 F so we are looking at 7 degrees heating (about 4 degrees C) above room temperature. All heaters but one were Ebo-Jagers (the other a Visi-Therm). All were installed in the upright position.

What amazed me was how efficient large tanks are at conserving heat. The watts/gallon figures are not used in calculating dollar costs but make for interesting comparisons. You would think that the more watts per gallon you have, the less the heater would be on. Surprisingly, that is not always the case. I was worried about heating a 180 gallon tank with a 250 W heater (would it be enough heat output?) but it is on less often than the same size and brand heater on my 90 gallon. I surmise that this is due to the larger volume of water retaining heat better and the fact that the glass is thicker. Also my 180 gallon is my only tank with foam insulation underneath so maybe that makes a difference. Other factors that could affect your heating are: the location of the tank (by a window, wall, open door), the type water movement in the tank, location of heat vents in the home, and the type and amount of covering for the tank. [so tell the spouse you need a bigger tank and it won’t cost any more to run it!!! (At least the electricity part)].

In case you wonder how to calculate the cost of the heater, I will give you an example. My 200 W heater is on 20.3% of the time so that is 20.3% out of 24 hours so .203 x 24 x 30.4 days in a month = 148.1 hours a month. 148.1 x 200 Watts = 29,620. I am paying 9.1 cents per kilowatt hour so that is 29,620/1000 x .091 = $2.70 per month. You can calculate your lights and filters the same way. I am calculating in Canadian dollars.

I don’t have live plants so I have single bulb lighting and the lights are only on an average of 6 hours per day (so for me I multiply watts of lighting by .25).

Examples of filter energy use are: AquaClear 110 – 14 Watts, AquaClear 70 – 6 W, AquaClear 50 – 6 W, and Eheim 2217 – 20 W. Amongst my five tanks I have 9 filters.

I calculated that the cost total for electricity for the 5 tanks I have, to be $29.91 per month, which averages out to $6 a month per tank. 70% of that electrical cost is for heaters, 22% for filters, and 8% for lights. If you live in an area where your home is above 70 degrees F much of the time because of the warm weather, your heating costs would be less. If you are heavily into lighting, that portion will be more.

Other costs would be costs of the water (I am on a flat rate at the moment, not a meter), and the cost of heating the water as you do water changes – most people would not be adding it cold from the tap but trying for tank temperature around tank temperature. That calculation is for another day.

So there you have it. If you are too lazy to do all this math and recordkeeping, you can use the $6 a month per tank average for light, filter, and heater expenses if your electricity rate is around 9 cents per kilowatt hour. A 12 cent/kwh rate would be $8 a month per tank; 18 cents works out to $12 a month.

I have been back into fish keeping for the past five years. I have put off doing these calculations because I really did not want to know the answers. The costs were not as expensive as I had thought. You might think I’m crazy to go to all the trouble math-wise, but I must confess to being a math teacher. Say, I think I might use this as a bonus question on next week’s quiz!!

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