jeez £250 that seems really expensive ?
Having said that, I recently calculated that my 200 litre tank costs £250 per year in electricity.
how did you work that out?
would be good to work mine out (im a bit scared after reading that!)
Lights: 30W + 30W + 25W = 85W
85W × 10 hours × 365 days = 310250W per year
Heater: 200W
200W × 8 hours × 365 days = 730000W per year
Filter: 20W
20W × 24 hours × 365 days = 175200W per year
Now for the cost (using British Gas, "Standard" rate, Tier 2 - which it is fair to use if you go over Tier 1 just from other every day household stuff)
310250W + 730000W + 175200W = 1215450W = 1215.5kWh
1215.5kWh × £0.10 = £121.55
Sorry, the £250 was an overestimate! I did it for a tank I have in Germany where there is no such thing as Tier 2 rates, everything is charges at Tier 1 rates and electricity has a 19% VAT on it so it's bloody expensive. So my tank really does cost that much, but yours won't!
So, the difference between running an Eheim 2073 and an FX5 in UK is about £28 per year.
Eheim 2073! They are quite efficient at 16W
Having said that, I recently calculated that my 200 litre tank costs £250 per year in electricity.
Edit: Yes, the FX5 is by far too powerful, did you look at the
specs?
That is a turnover of 3.2. If I remember correctly planted tanks or Cichlid need around x8? (might be wrong)
Where did you get that figure from? Or even more importantly, what is the reason for 8×? I am curious as to how someone came up with that precise figure. Depending on the fish and the layout of the tank, I have used everything from 1×-10× in freshwater tanks and 8×-20× in marine.
My planted tanks, I usually keep at 2×. I have found that using the spraybar as the outlet at one end of the tank (with the water flow directed at the opposite side) and collected back at the starting end (bottom) is enough for most non-jungle layouts. If I turn it up any higher, the fish star to become stressed trying to swim against the flow.
And for my African tanks, I arranged it so that the water has to travel through all the rocks to get to the inlet which means that there are no dead spots. But the flow rate for those is still 3×.
That is actually why I like the Eheim 3e filters: you can adjust the flow rate on them very nicely.
