How Much Electricity?

[kennygater]

hi i was just wondering how much a large reef tank cost in electric what with light, powerheads, heater, pumps ect. i will be moving this year and would like a large tank. i have already had a 350 litre with 150w light already but didnt work out what the cost was. just a ruff idea would be helpfull. thanks

 

[norite]

Simply add up the wattage of all your electrical equipment, and find out what your electricity supplier charges per kilowatt hour.
Lets say they charge you 15p per kilowatt hour. That means if your using 1kw (i.e. 1000watts) of leccy for a one hour period, it will cost 15p. Aquariums have nowhere near this usage! A slight complication is the heater, as it isn't on all the time, but I'm sure you could make an estimation...maybe it's only on for a third of the time in summer, but 2/3rds in winter....

That's roughly how it works. Now, just to complicate things, You will find the leccy company will have x units at a higher rate, and the rest of your kw/hour units at a lower y rate. They will divide the x amount by the no. of days in the year, then spread this out for your quarterly bill.

 

[kennygater]

Simply add up the wattage of all your electrical equipment, and find out what your electricity supplier charges per kilowatt hour.
Lets say they charge you 15p per kilowatt hour. That means if your using 1kw (i.e. 1000watts) of leccy for a one hour period, it will cost 15p. Aquariums have nowhere near this usage! A slight complication is the heater, as it isn't on all the time, but I'm sure you could make an estimation...maybe it's only on for a third of the time in summer, but 2/3rds in winter....

That's roughly how it works. Now, just to complicate things, You will find the leccy company will have x units at a higher rate, and the rest of your kw/hour units at a lower y rate. They will divide the x amount by the no. of days in the year, then spread this out for your quarterly bill.

ok thanks i will have a go at working that out in a min.

 

[SkiFletch]

Yup, Norite is right, you have to add up the wattages to find out how much energy is used per hour. Also remember, lights are only on for shorter periods of time .

While my tank may be smaller, here's a breakdown of my electrical usage to give you an idea

175watt halide
18 watt Seio
18 watt Seio
43 watt Mag 5 return pump for my sump
29 watt powerhead for skimmer
38 watt powerhead for skimmer
13 watt light for refugium
250 watt heater
9 watt UV sterilizer
9 watt ozonizer
5 watt air pump for ozonizer
11 watt fan with lights
11 watt fan with lights

So my fixed power usage (pumps/powerheads, ozonizer, and skimmer) total up to 169 watts per hour or 4056 watts per day. My halides use 175 watts 10 hours a day (aka 1970 per day). And my refugium light uses 13 watts for 14 hours per day (aka 182). In the summer, my heater is OFF so a grand total of 6208 watts or 6.2 kilowatt hours. That works out to $18.6 to run my tank for a month in hte summer (may-october). In the winter, my heater is on roughly 30 percent of the day, so 250x24x.3= 1800 watts. So another 1.8 kilowatt hours bringing me up to a grand total of $24 per month to run my tank. Of course this is all with a kilowatt hour rate of $0.10... Good thing I live right next to the largest renewable energy source in the world (Niagara Falls)