How much does it cost to run an aquarium?

[sunflower]

OK, so here's the background.

My brother has a 3ft tank which is currently cycling (fishless). Everything was going quite well and we thought he'd be able to add fish today (he's having some of my plattys)

My brother has been staying at my house since Wednesday.

I got a call this morning to say that my evil Step Father has turned the tank off He says that there's nothing in it and it's costing too much to run!!!

He now wants my brother to pay £1 per day to run the tank

I asked my boyfriend if our electricity bill had gone up much since we had the tank and apparently the increase is minimal. Our whole bill for the month is £24 yet the evil man is wanting my brother to pay him £30 a month

My question is, anyone got any idea how much it costs in £'s to run a tank??

 

[CFC]

Our electricity bill with 11 tanks running and a total gallonage of around 480 gallons is roughly £35 a month total inclusive of normal household electricity use as well. Even based on £35 a month for the tanks alone the cost is only around 7 pence per gallon per month giving a 3 foot 30g tank a monthly running cost of around £2.19 a month. Most electrical equipment on freshwater aquariums is low wattage and uses very little power.

 

[Kittycat]

Maybe you can check how many watts your filter, heater, lights etc. use up per hour, then calculate accordingly? I'm not in UK, but our electricity bill hasn't changed much since I started keeping tanks. Or he can just pay the difference in the bill at the same time the year before and the present, if that will come out cheaper and the rates hadn't changed...

 

[Def]

When I added a 27gallon and a 10 gallon, I saw no effective change in my bill. My bill is really high anyway, about £45 per month as I have lots of servers and desktops on 24 hours a day.

 

[karrihug]

i have 17 aquariums now ranging from 1 gallon to 210. all have lighting and filters and all but the 4 smallest have heaters. my electric bill hasn't gone up that i can tell.

 

[Ben]

why would he scam money off his own stepson?

 

[Matty]

because they're not related

 

[Erised]

http/www.fishforums.net/index.php?showto...&hl=electricity
Have a look at that thread, gives pretty much the same outcome as the people here say ... so yeah

 

[teacherspet]

I had the same argument with my roomate, which is why I had posted a smiliar question a couple weeks ago. I am in San Diego, so it may be a bit different, but I talked to the actual power cokpany and it cost approximately $2.10 a month to run a 20 gallon with filter and lights only. So, I pay an extra $5 on the bill for my 3 tanks totalling 35 gallons. Seems like a fair price to pay...

 

[Opcn]

lets see probably 15 watts for each light (I'm guessing two) and it may be on for say 12 hours a day so thats 360 watt hours a day, then you have a heater I'm guessing 150 watt and being liberal I'd say about 4 hours a day so (all toll) there is now ~ 960 watt hours , Now I'm not sure about the pump but we have been liberal in regards sto the lights and heater so lets be liberal again and say its a 50 watt system running 24 hrs a day thats 120 watt hours a day so now we are up to 1.08 kW/hrs a day or 30.24 Kw hrs a month. Now in Alaska it costs 15 cents (~1/10th an pound) for one Kw hr and ill bet its cheaper in the UK but we will stick with my number. so now we are costing a massive 3.10 pounds a month, Not 30.

Edit: someone else already did this in the other thread

 

[sunflower]

Edit: someone else already did this in the other thread

Sorry hun, I only found the other thread after I'd already posted.

 

[Opcn]

I was reffering to the tallying up of kW hrs Sun. Not the content of the thread.

 

[bugsy66]

We had our local electrician here doing some house work. I asked him how much my 25 gal tank takes in electricity for heat, filter, lights and he said that it is not even going to touch our hydro bill. We have noticed no difference at all.

Now, tell you stepfather he would have something to worry about if you installed what we just did. A six person hot tub outside, want to talk about electricity. I live in Canada where the winters are very cold -25. We are just at the freezing point right now so it will be using more to keep the heat up.

We had the tub last year and during -25 it cost us $20.00 CDN extra per month. Tell him to chill out, it might even relax him when it is up and running. He can sit and watch it and relax.

bugsy

 

[sunflower]

Well, thanks for that guys but the argument is over now, my brother has been kicked out and is living with me

 

[Cheese Specialist]

wow, that sounds like a really nice guy! No offence meant, of course!

At least you won't mind the fish!!