Tropical Fish Forum
Tropical Fish Keeping Help and Advice => General Fishkeeping advice => Topic started by: Rustle on December 15, 2017, 09:57:02 AM
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Hi everyone i wonder if anyone could do a rough estimate on the cost of running my aquarium. I want to set up a shrimp tank after xmas & breed from my cories but i am little concerned about the cost of running 2 tanks.
My main tank at the moment is 180 juwel Rio
Lighting is aqua one j bar time 8hrs 66 Watt
Heater 200 Watt time unknown
Filter 8 Watt time 24 hrs
Air Pump 4 Watt time 16 to 18 hrs
Energy Supplier 16.89 KWh
What i have done today tho is changed my tarriff to fixed rate until feb 2019 so i am guessing i can use as much as i want without being charged extra' although next year it may rise quite high, which is why i would like to know how much a week my tank is costing me.
Merry Christmas to all
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@Rustle I guess you understand the basics ie Watts x time in hours gives the number of kWhr and therefore the cost. So the lights will be 8hr x 66W = 0.528kWhr per day = 8.9pence The tricky thing is knowing how much the heating will cost. The good news is that it is NOT 200Watts x 24hours it is a much smaller amount, but it depends on the room and tank temperature. The higher the difference between the two and the larger the tank the higher the actual usage. I have watched my heaters cycle ON/OFF to know how close they are to the actual heat loss as I had used a rule of thumb to size the heaters. It was something like 2 minutes in every 10 minute period (so 12min per hour) once the tank is up to temperature. If yours operate like this it would be 4.8hr x 200W = 0.96kWhr per day, 16.2pence per day. You can do the same for the other lower consumption items but they are not scary. This is just the electricity running costs, food and ‘stuff’ will be the bigger consideration I would guess.
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I have never bothered to work it out, lucky in one way I have had my 400 litre for about 9 months and my heaters have come on once, but in the summer my chiller is on 2 or 3 times a day.
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Cheers Andy it kinda worked out how i thought then, My room temp is around 22 to 23 degrees all the time and the tank fluctuates between 23 to 25 so the heater would not kick in that often.
I think i worked it out that my kettle would use more during the day but i could not convince myself that was right.
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Your room is 22-23C at all times? Ouch! If you get some decent heating controls fitted and reduce the temperature at night it will save you enough for a third tank :) A rough guide is a 1C reduction of room temp saves about 10% of your heating bill. I work for a complany that makes controls .......but I'm not going to say who, so it's not a sales plug. ::)
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Oh god no the heating don't come on very often and it's a very warm house and economical . It has Worcester boiler with danfoss thermostat.
The house is only 2 yrs old so is well insulated. We have it set to kick in during the day if it goes below 21 degrees.