220 Inwall - Plan

[melev]

This happened to Hop as well, but I think your bill is inaccurate.

My bill averages to be around $310 in the summer months, and when I got a bill for $455 I was upset. I contacted them, they agreed it was a mistake and promised to re-read the meter. Two weeks later I called up to find out what the real bill was, and the guy told me it was still $455. So rather than debating him, I just paid it because I knew the next bill would be lower. And it was -- $210, just as I expeced. Because they overcharged, the next month was cheaper.

The good news is my next bill came in a couple of days ago, and it was only $190! Since $80 of that is probably for my tank, I did good that month.

There is a good page you can enter your data in to figure out how much your tank is costing you. I'll see if I can find it.

 

[melev]

http://www.aquariumadvice.com/calcs2.php?type=electric

 

[melev]

I did a little refiguring on my system, and since it is a little larger than yours, we should be able to make a comparison.

"White lights" - I entered 900w for my Metal Halides - 11 hrs (11am to 10 pm)
"Blue Lights" - I entered 320w for VHOs - 9 hrs (1pm to 10pm)
"Heater" - I entered 450w - 6 hrs a day (the site recommends 6 hours)
"Main Circulation Pump" - mine states 1.3amps, so I entered 143w - 24 hrs
"Skimmer Pump" - 2 Sedra 5000 (50w each) - 100w - 24 hrs
"Supplemental pumps" - 2 Tunze 6100 Streams (45w each) - 90w - 24 hrs
Calcium Reactor pump - Mag 7 - 70w - 24 hrs
Refugium lighting - 38w - 24 hrs
Misc pumps for Phosban Reactors - 40w - 24 hrs

That includes 4w for the Aqua Controller and 3w for the top off.

My cost per kilowatt hour on this bill was .103

So my total wattage was 2151.
Cost to run the tank was $83.50 for the month, $1002 for the year.

 

[tgunn]

<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=6342767#post6342767 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by bheron
Ok, this is scary. We just got our Utility Bill for the past month. -- I got the tank up and running about a month ago --.
....
I never thought the increase would affect my staying in the hobby, but I know for sure we cant live with $675 a month utility bills!

Heh, yeah, the ongoing electrical costs are kinda amazing when you think of it. The way I figure it I should be spending $30-40 per month on electricity for my reef. that's almost as much as I spend each month power for EVERYTHING else in the house.. Certainly isn't a "power smart" hobby is it?

I'm guessing you must have electric heat?

I had a scare my first winter in my house; we got our natural gas bill for the first really cold month and it was $280. Turns out I misread the meter and the next bill was $12. Ooops..

Tyler

 

[bheron]

Wow guys, you are really putting me at ease here. A couple of things:

Marc -

This happened to Hop as well, but I think your bill is inaccurate. I contacted them, they agreed it was a mistake and promised to re-read the meter.

- Ok, am planning on doing that next. We'll see what the difference really was.

There is a good page you can enter your data in to figure out how much your tank is costing you. I'll see if I can find it.

- Thank you. Thank you. I have the amperage for most of my equipment on file. Let me check this.

My cost per kilowatt hour on this bill was .103

- Thanks for running all of this, Marc. This is really making me feel better.

Tyler -

Certainly isn't a "power smart" hobby is it?

YES! :mad2:

I'm guessing you must have electric heat?

- No, gas. BUt we have to heat alot of space. Along with that, we're thinking there were some other culprits.

Thanks for the help. I'm gonna check out that website and also call the energy company to explain this.

Thank again everyone!

 

[bheron]

UPDATE

Ok, I just got some more detail on the above.

First, I used that great link Marc sent to calculate the power consumption of my tank :

http://www.aquariumadvice.com/calcs2.php?type=electric

According to this, my tank's power consumption breaks down like this:

White Light 320W (10 hrs) -
Blue Light 320W (10 hrs) -
Heater 500W (6rs) -
Mag 18 Main Circulation Pump 145W (24rs) -
Main Skimmer Pump 27W (24 hrs) -
Tunze Streams 34 (24hrs) -


At .13 per Kilowatt,

- My tank is using a total of 1346 watts
- My total monthly electrical cost for your tank is $55.9416.
- My total yearly electrical cost for your tank is $671.2992.

Lights use up about $25 a month
Heater $12
Mag18 about $14
Skimmer and Tunzes another $6

The total is right around where I expected this to run me all along, so I am SOOOOO relieved! How about that Mag18?? :eek2: I knew I would have different things to hate about this sucker.

So, thats step one down. Not really the cause of my tank system.

Step 2 was to call the Power Company. Just did that. Here's what they told me:

Electric Bill went from $147.87 last month to $261.87.
- Thats a $110 difference. Factor in the $50-$60, Christmas lights inside and out, and other misc, I can see that.

Gas Bill went from $138.28 last month to $413!!!!! Wow, now thats nuts. But, with the weather, the thanksgiving dinner we had, and other misc stuff, I still can't see the jump. And it wasn't just the cost per CCF. We essentially doubled our usage this past month, and wound up paying a 200% increase in our heating bill. Well, they said it was coming.


So, in summary, my huge bill increase was caused by our heating bill, primarily. Still have to get the actual bill and,like Marc said, check the meter and see if it was read incorrectly.

Thanks for everyone's help. This is definitely a learning experience for me and,hopefully, anyone reading along.

 

[melev]

I'm actually impressed by your tank numbers. The skimmer only used 27w? What pump is that? And the Tunze Streams are only 34w (might that be each?)... The rest looks right.

Take a look at the temperature of your house. My son gripes about his cold room, which occurs because it is at the far end of the house and his window leaks enough to be wasteful. We recently talked about this within the club membership. I keep my house at 68 to 69F. One person keeps his home at 65F. Others at 74F. 69F required sweaters and even blankets when sitting still for a while. It could even be the reason why I can't quite feel 100% for the past week. I've been see-sawing on the verge of a full-blown cold. But I digress.

Gas heating is supposed to be very expensive. I have all-electric. Your gigantic bill is more like 300% increase, I think (seems to be tripled what you used to) and I would see if perhaps you could cut back a little bit. Each degree that you sacrifice can save quite a bit of money. In the summer, they tell us to keep our houses at 80F to save money, but I tend to keep it at 74F and have to pay quite a bit extra for that degree of comfort.

I still hope it is a bad reading.

 

[Stile2]

Gas v. Electric heating depends where in the country you live. In California Gas is way cheaper then electric.

Keith

 

[bheron]

Hi all. Hope everyone that celebrated had a nice holiday!

Been busy and just wanted to give an update.

First, responses to the above:

Marc -

I'm actually impressed by your tank numbers. The skimmer only used 27w? What pump is that? And the Tunze Streams are only 34w (might that be each?)

- Actually, I double checked and here's what I found on the wattages:

- Skimmer uses a Sedra KSP3500 pump, 350GPH and 35Watts. This is straight off the pump itself. (I know, I need a bigger one soon, but thats not gonna happen too soon).

- I could be wrong on the Tunzes - it DOES sound really low - but I got this info off of the marinedepot page, so who knows. I have (2) 6080 streams:

http://www.marinedepot.com/md_viewItem.asp?idproduct=TZ1315

And on the power, yes, my wife and I have already put several measurements in place to quickly hit this problem. UNless its a meter error (we'll see) then we have to make some major adjustments. This week I'll be creeping around the house looking for draft spots.

Thanks for the input on the subject Marc and Stile2. I'll provide more detail when I get my bill.


NOW....onto the good stuff.

As hoped, I got a new Digital Camera from Santa! Its a Kodak C340, in case anyone knows or cares.

Now, I've already started my picture taking classes (aka - threads on RC here, and also Melev's site ) but I decided to go ahead and treat everyone with some pics. I'm still learning and have a ways to go, and I can only hold about 16 pics at a time with the internal memory, but here goes....

Here's my favorite macro pic so far:

Here's a really bad/blurry one I tried taking of my mini-zoos that have started to grow back:

And this is my Ricordea I got about a week and a half ago thats already split into two pieces. I think I did a good job with the shot:

Out of about 25-30 shots, heres the only good closeup I got of my fish:

Oh, and here's the worst of my algae problem that I "used" to have before my cleaner crew got to work. This picture is recent, but they're working on it:

 

[bheron]

CONTINUED....

CONTINUED....

Now for some wide angle shots.

Here's a shot of the tank coming down the steps in the room:

Side view

Corner view:

Front

Far back:

Here's a two shots of the back room:

And, finally, a "holiday" shot. I took this standing outside my basement. This is a cool shot that I'll get a better one of soon.

Enjoy!

 

[melev]

Excellent. Nice pictures, and always nice to see progress. Everything looks good.

You know, if you happen to own a UPS (like an APC 1500), you can plug you 34w of Tunzes into it. It should keep the circulation in your tank for close to 6 hours if the power goes out for some reason (like not paying the bill). :lol:

 

[tgunn]

Looking good Bryan! Glad Santa got you a new camera! Perhaps the dog teamed up and planned it all along!

Nice shot of the cleaner shrimp; he looks exactly like the one I've got. Guess they all look pretty similar...

Glad to hear the cleanup crew is chewing through the algae fast. Mine are pretty much done with the rocks (bang up job) and are onto the back glass and overflow where they're really making quick work of the algae. In the next few days the refugium will start so that should help things out too..

BTW as for the power, if you don't already have one, get one of those programmable thermostats. Makes a difference. We just use a small space heater in our room at night when it's cold; figure it's much cheaper to make one room comfortable rather than the whole house.. I've also recently dropped the house temp from 69.8F to 68F when we're home; don't notice it much but I'm sure it helps. And yeah, draft seals make a big diff too....

Later,
Tyler

 

[bheron]

Thanks for the feedback! You've encouraged me to take more pictures. And I'll do that today when the lights come on and will post 'em soon.

Marc -

if you happen to own a UPS (like an APC 1500), you can plug you 34w of Tunzes into it. It should keep the circulation in your tank for close to 6 hours if the power goes out for some reason (like not paying the bill).

- Haha. But, whats a UPS? I know I read about this somewhere at some point but I cant recall. I really do need to plan for backup power real soon, before I buy too much more and put it into this tank. I want real minimum backup - like just a heater and the powerhead(s).



Tyler -

BTW as for the power, if you don't already have one, get one of those programmable thermostats.

- You mean, for the house heating itself, or like a remote one that we can hook up to a portableheater? Hmmm.

I've also recently dropped the house temp from 69.8F to 68F when we're home

- Yea. Well we just dropped ours to like 64-65 when we're home. We used to do the 68-69 too. We knew these 10' ceilings were gonna get us.

 

[weatherson]

It's coming right along and looking quite nice. I wonder though if you could utilize European hinges on your access door? If so, it would be cleaner looking and may possibly aid in keeping the door completely closed, tight up against the tank.

Joseph

 

[tgunn]

- You mean, for the house heating itself, or like a remote one that we can hook up to a portableheater? Hmmm.
- Yea. Well we just dropped ours to like 64-65 when we're home. We used to do the 68-69 too. We knew these 10' ceilings were gonna get us. [/B]

Yup, the house heating itself and cooling itself type. We have ours set to bring the temperature up in the morning and evening to 68-69F. At night and when we're at work the temp drops down to the 64 range. Seems to save on energy....

Wow, 64-65 when you're home; that must take a bit of getting used to!

Tyler

 

[melev]

A UPS is a Uninterrupted Power Supply. Many of us have our computer plugged into one, so that if the power goes out we don't loose what we are working one.

I bought one at CompUSA for $99, and used it to keep my 55g backed up circulation-wise for two years.

 

[bheron]

Weatherson -

It's coming right along and looking quite nice. I wonder though if you could utilize European hinges on your access door? If so, it would be cleaner looking and may possibly aid in keeping the door completely closed, tight up against the tank.

- Weatherson, thanks for stopping by! Always good to get your feedback. Yea, I've heard of that type of hinge before, but refresh my memory? is it the type that can be installed on the inner side of the dor, instead of the outside?


Tyler -

Yup, the house heating itself and cooling itself type. We have ours set to bring the temperature up in the morning and evening to 68-69F. At night and when we're at work the temp drops down to the 64 range. Seems to save on energy....

- Ok, thats what we already have. Youre right - it really does work great. We have it set for each day of the week. Its really a powersaver.

Wow, 64-65 when you're home; that must take a bit of getting used to!

- haha. Yea, its on 64 all day and not nearly as bad as I thought. But, we're in kind of a mild-weather-wave here so we'll see when it gets back down to the teens.

Marc -

A UPS is a Uninterrupted Power Supply. Many of us have our computer plugged into one, so that if the power goes out we don't loose what we are working one.

- Got it. I found one here at Best Buy.

http://www.bestbuy.com/site/olspage.jsp?skuId=6819552&type=product&id=1091101368673

Tell me, can I also use it to power one of my heaters in case of an outtage?

 

[melev]

It doesn't state how many minutes it will run based on how much wattage is consumed.

I'd say no to the heater question. For a 220g tank, you need 660w of heat and no UPS could run long enough to provide that type of power for very long. In that case you'll want a gas or propane-powered generator instead. Mine produces 5000w, but I've never needed to use it fortunately.

 

[bheron]

Ah, ok. Got it. Thats eventually what I really want to get. there is/was a great thread on here on the topic. I would like to get it sooner than leter though.

Thanks Marc!

 

[Knyght]

Santa brought you a C340 huh? Brought the wife a C330
Wonder what the change is. Probably something I would never use for an additional few $$
What did the puppy get????? Mine got a nice big juicy real bone.

Once you and I get past the auto stage we should rival Marc & Joseph *as if*. Just wish I could figure out if there is an f-stop feature. Any one know?

:beachbum: