Costs Of Running A Tank?

[**sarahp**]

This may sound like a daft question but I have to ask - does anyone have any idea how much it costs to run a tank?? My electricity bill came in last week and I nearly fell over. My friend suggested it may be the tank but I cant see how??

Its a 450 litre Rena, running and XP4 and an XP3 filter, only one light (the other blew and I havent replaced it yet!!) which is on for maybe 4 hours a day if that, 2x150 watt heaters and an air pump.

I dont see that there is anything in there that can be pushing my electric bill to nearly £7 per day

 

[Truck]

you can work it out,

how many watts are the XP4 and XP3? and also your lighting? it will say somewhere on them.

 

[Harlequins]

I have an electric key meter which on average i put in £10 a week,and i have 2 externals,2 internals,3 heaters & 3 airpumps going plus the usual running of a 2 bed house...

 

[Paradise3]

That's all we do harlequins and i have healthy fish in my room as the electric never really goes off, £10 lasts quite a while in my house and it's a 3 bed house.

Xxx~misscosmo~xxX

 

[star4]

I would get your meter checked I run 9 tanks in a 2 bed house, our electric is between £10-15 per week and with 2 small children and the washing machine going constantly.

 

[bezzo89]

Electric meters turn in KW/h's so an easy way of working it out is that using 1000 watts for an hour will make 1kwh.

Heaters
300 watts
300wattsx24hours=7200watts (7.2Kw/h)

Filters
38watts in total according to the site here clicky
38wattsx24hours=912watts (.912kw/h)

Lights
depending on what ones u have it could be different but as an example using a 50w bulb
50wattsx24hours=1200watts (1.2kw/h)

Air pump
It would depend on the size on the bottom of the small one i use it has it uses 1.2watts
1.2wattsx24hours=28.8watts (0.0288kw/h)

Total
So if we add these up...
7.2+0.912+1.2+0.0288= 9.3408kw/h per day

Depending on what tariff your on this could be anywhere between 11pence to around 28pence per kwh it should say on your bill what your primary and secondary unit rates are.

As an example if it was 17pence per kw/h it would mean you would spend £1.58 per day totalling around £11.15pw

Oh the joys of working for an electricity and gas company.


For seven pound to be used per day there is a lot more being used in the property.

Things like mobile phone chargers and laptop charges are the typical things left on, as they still use energy even if the appliance is unplugged as long as they are still on at the wall.

if it continues it might be worth getting one of these thingys plug in monitor

or depending on how helpful your supplier is talking to their energy efficiency department.

Hope this helps!!

I would get your meter checked I run 9 tanks in a 2 bed house, our electric is between £10-15 per week and with 2 small children and the washing machine going constantly.

Some company's charge for this be warned, if they dont find anything wrong with it, they can sometimes charge around £20 for being called out.
The other thing you can do is take spaced readings say one a day at the same time each day for 4 days and then advise them of it so they have a rolling daily average, this often gets asked to be done anyway.

 

[Essjay]

It's actually slightly less than bezzo89 worked out, as his calculation is assuming you have the light on for 24 hours a day.

Was the bill based on actual readings or estimated? Have you checked the meter to see what your reading is now, and compared it to the one on the bill? For our last bill, the meter was read but entered incorrectly. When I read the meter and worked out how much the bill should have been for, we'd been undercharged by about £100 for the quarter - I thought the bill was unusually small. Have they done the same to you, but overcharged you?

 

[bezzo89]

estimated readings can always be a problem and yes that was with the light on for 24 hours so it would be slightly cheaper, is it your first bill or a continuous one as well?

 

[dudleyd]

By being tight and making sure everything in the house is off and unplugged when not in use my bill is less now than before i got my tank (and that includes the stupid price hikes that british gas introduce every 3 weeks). Wonder if i'll be allowed another as it's obviously saving us money.

 

[Truck]

The lighting wouldn't be on for 24 hours and the heaters aren't on all of the time.

 

[bezzo89]

By being tight and making sure everything in the house is off and unplugged when not in use my bill is less now than before i got my tank (and that includes the stupid price hikes that british gas introduce every 3 weeks). Wonder if i'll be allowed another as it's obviously saving us money.

Haha you can only ask about another tank.

To be honest the only way to get it cheap is to just turn everything else off.

The calculation i done was just an example explanation using the information i had its not to be taken by the letter its just to give some idea of what it would be if everything was on constantly with the example tank and how much it would use.

 

[**sarahp**]

Electric meters turn in KW/h's so an easy way of working it out is that using 1000 watts for an hour will make 1kwh.

Heaters
300 watts
300wattsx24hours=7200watts (7.2Kw/h)

Filters
38watts in total according to the site here clicky
38wattsx24hours=912watts (.912kw/h)

Lights
depending on what ones u have it could be different but as an example using a 50w bulb
50wattsx24hours=1200watts (1.2kw/h)

Air pump
It would depend on the size on the bottom of the small one i use it has it uses 1.2watts
1.2wattsx24hours=28.8watts (0.0288kw/h)

Total
So if we add these up...
7.2+0.912+1.2+0.0288= 9.3408kw/h per day

Depending on what tariff your on this could be anywhere between 11pence to around 28pence per kwh it should say on your bill what your primary and secondary unit rates are.

As an example if it was 17pence per kw/h it would mean you would spend £1.58 per day totalling around £11.15pw

Oh the joys of working for an electricity and gas company.


For seven pound to be used per day there is a lot more being used in the property.

Things like mobile phone chargers and laptop charges are the typical things left on, as they still use energy even if the appliance is unplugged as long as they are still on at the wall.

if it continues it might be worth getting one of these thingys plug in monitor

or depending on how helpful your supplier is talking to their energy efficiency department.

Hope this helps!!

I would get your meter checked I run 9 tanks in a 2 bed house, our electric is between £10-15 per week and with 2 small children and the washing machine going constantly.

Some company's charge for this be warned, if they dont find anything wrong with it, they can sometimes charge around £20 for being called out.
The other thing you can do is take spaced readings say one a day at the same time each day for 4 days and then advise them of it so they have a rolling daily average, this often gets asked to be done anyway.

Excellent thanks for all the effort!!! There is definitely something odd going on. Its a four bed house and this was a proper reading from 4th Jan to 30th Jan, so I am really wondering if there is a fault. Will call the company - its Utilities Warehouse - and see what they say. There is nothing I can think of that would result in such a humongous bill. May well look at getting one of those usage monitors too!!

But you have put my mind at rest about having to get rid of my fishes Once again thanks for all your input peeps

 

[nyx2k]

i have a large 3 bed detached all electric and have 5 storage heaters running plus immersions for hot water and 3 computers running 18hrs a day and 2 200 ltr tanks with 300w heaters and my total cost is around £5 per day for every item. and around £2 a day in the summer

 

[boost]

alot of energy supplyers are now givin away them energy monitors for free now, might be worth phoning who ever you are with, i know brittish gas and southen elec are free for sure, british gas you can get one free if you are on benifits even if your not with british gas

www.britishgas.co.uk/productoffers


Enter promo code EF3 (case sensative)

 

[OldMan47]

The real electrical expense of a tank is almost completely the lights and heaters. The othre bits like the filter and air pump use almost nothing by comparison. One of the attractions to the goodeid group of fish is that most of them thrive and actually do better in unheated tanks.