Just to add to the thread. When was the last time you charged the key/card. Each time you put money on it, the data inc the tarif and standing charge is updated by put the key in the meter the meter updates its self. You can check the tarif and standing charge by pressing the button on the meter (cycles through a few other things aswell with each press of the button)
Electricity Costs
- Thread starter smudger123
- Start date
Why not run one of the tanks with low light and no warming, if you're concerned about electricity costs? The power consumption should be almost non-existent, as filters/powerheads all have very low wattages. Many fish, inverts and plants will be happy in 18C and even less, including the beautiful White Clouds, Amano shrimp (and possibly many other swamp-dwelling shrimp but I haven't researched this), zebra danios, gold barbs and weather loaches.
OP
OP
smudger123
Fish Fanatic
So could I have pearl danios, white clouds and a weather loach in the 125 with no heater on then? Does everything else stay the same? Liking this idea a lot for my bedroom!
What about plants, will they survive cold water or would I have to replace them with others?
edit: will have to have a look tomorrow flash, its freezing out there!
What about plants, will they survive cold water or would I have to replace them with others?
edit: will have to have a look tomorrow flash, its freezing out there!
Yeah, white clouds and weather loaches actually tolerate pretty cold water, down to 15C and below. Dunno about the best plants for low temperature tanks, but I reckon many of the hardier species would be fine. Plants generally have a wider range of temperature tolerance than animals, although there are exceptions.
There's a useful pinned topic in the Planted tanks section, which lists many of the common aquarium plants and their preferred temperatures etc. It's not an absolute guide - some plants just seem to like - or hate - your tank regardless of the theory, but might be a useful starting point? If you already have plants, I'd make sure you adjust the temperature gradually, and hopefully they'll be OK.
[topic="22604"]Common-Aquarium-Plants-and-Planted-links[/topic]
Hope this helps.
[topic="22604"]Common-Aquarium-Plants-and-Planted-links[/topic]
Hope this helps.
There are a lot of options for stocking a "cold water" tank. What it takes is a bit of homework finding out the temperature range on each fish you consider and then looking around to find them. We all have fish that live year around outdoors where we live but seldom think of local fish as worth keeping. We end up with tropicals and then must deal with the heating issues. Many of the goodeids can easily be kept at lower temperatures and actually do best when the tank temperatures move with room temperatures.
petertr
Fish Addict
One more thing to consider...
Water changes; you do them (20% - 30%) every week don't you?
When you fill your container / bucket with fresh water for your tank, run a bit of hot water into it so it is tedip. That way your not burning up electricity while your tank heater struggles to get the tank back up to the correct temp. Silly thing really, but think about it. The cost of running a hot water tap for a few seconds has got to be a lot cheaper than running the tank heater for an extra hour or two. Also, will reduce the stress on the fish too.
Bear in mind that a lot of hot water boilers have far higher levels of metal traces (some don't, if you're lucky) - so that could hurt your fish.
Ive started putting 4 buckets of water out overnight to let them at least adjust to room temperature.
One more thing to consider...
Water changes; you do them (20% - 30%) every week don't you?
When you fill your container / bucket with fresh water for your tank, run a bit of hot water into it so it is tedip. That way your not burning up electricity while your tank heater struggles to get the tank back up to the correct temp. Silly thing really, but think about it. The cost of running a hot water tap for a few seconds has got to be a lot cheaper than running the tank heater for an extra hour or two. Also, will reduce the stress on the fish too.
Bear in mind that a lot of hot water boilers have far higher levels of metal traces (some don't, if you're lucky) - so that could hurt your fish.
Ive started putting 4 buckets of water out overnight to let them at least adjust to room temperature.
Much of this depends on your hot water heating system. If you have a hot water heater that is independent from your home heating system, and keeps water under mains pressure you are generally safe to use this in your aquariums.
OP
OP
smudger123
Fish Fanatic
I know my hot water contains hydrogen sulphide because it smells of rotting eggs sometimes - apparently its the piping at fault because we have a boiler. You never know with hot water in my opinion.
Poohbear - I was using the electricity usage calculator on the Practical Fishkeeping website but there is some debate on how long the heater runs for. If you put it as only a few hours a day running a tank barely uses any electric but at the 14-24 hour mark electricity usage can go up quite significantly.
I've got my 240 cycling next to the 125 at my partners at the moment and we're monitoring the electric usage very closely. It seems that the two tanks have used £3.75 in 60 hours - thats £1.50 a day. Lets say for the purposes of monthly cost estimation our 240 has been using approx 90p a day and the 125 60p a day (thats with no insulation and cold water changes at 16p per kWH)
With the better 12p EbiCo rate, improved insulation and warm water changes I hope to third that and be looking at 30p a day/£9 a month/£108 year to run the 240l tank. Thats far more suitable for us and leaves room for the impending 30% electricity cost increase.
Poohbear - I was using the electricity usage calculator on the Practical Fishkeeping website but there is some debate on how long the heater runs for. If you put it as only a few hours a day running a tank barely uses any electric but at the 14-24 hour mark electricity usage can go up quite significantly.
I've got my 240 cycling next to the 125 at my partners at the moment and we're monitoring the electric usage very closely. It seems that the two tanks have used £3.75 in 60 hours - thats £1.50 a day. Lets say for the purposes of monthly cost estimation our 240 has been using approx 90p a day and the 125 60p a day (thats with no insulation and cold water changes at 16p per kWH)
With the better 12p EbiCo rate, improved insulation and warm water changes I hope to third that and be looking at 30p a day/£9 a month/£108 year to run the 240l tank. Thats far more suitable for us and leaves room for the impending 30% electricity cost increase.
Well i brought one of those eletric cost meters on saturday, plugged it in on 4pm on sat and upto now has cost a whopping 70 pence, so going by that my tank will cost about £2.50 a week to run. That was with a 30% water change yesterday and filling up straight from the tank. I pay on average 15p A KWH. Its a 240 litre tank equipment as follows.
Lighting 2 x 39w T5 tubes
1x 38w T8 tube (actual usage about 50w)
Filter 1x eheim pro 2 20w
Heater 1X 300w
hope this is of some use guys
Cheers Gordon
Lighting 2 x 39w T5 tubes
1x 38w T8 tube (actual usage about 50w)
Filter 1x eheim pro 2 20w
Heater 1X 300w
hope this is of some use guys
Cheers Gordon
5teady_2012
Here to help
Blimey you all still going on about this...
Blimey, what's it matter to you?
I've done the math on my tank, even over estimating how much the heater is on (my room is ~75 degrees so my heaters spend a great deal of time off) my tank only costs between $7 and $10 a month to run. Most FW tank equipment draws very little current, only your lighting and heaters draw anything of significance and they don't pull much than a few mid to large sized light bulbs.
I've done the math on my tank, even over estimating how much the heater is on (my room is ~75 degrees so my heaters spend a great deal of time off) my tank only costs between $7 and $10 a month to run. Most FW tank equipment draws very little current, only your lighting and heaters draw anything of significance and they don't pull much than a few mid to large sized light bulbs.
so that make me feel abit better Similar threads
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