Any ideas on how to save energy on a reef tank system.

[reefraider]

I switched from two 250 MH and 4 96w PC to four to the AI LEDs. I also have a chiller that used run due to the MH heat and now I have it set at 80 degrees for the summer just in case of a hot day. I run the lights at night, when I am home and when I am on off peak electrical rates. This reduced my electrical by almost $100 bucks per month. I have always had a dart as the return pump and as the closed loop. Anyways do the Lights

 

[zakk]

I went from 4X65 compacts and 2X250 MH's to 36 3W LED's and one of the MH's (so far). From the success I had with energy savings, heat, and customization, I will upgrade to ~48 more LED's and dump all the MH's.

I think they rate ~50,000 hours per LED, and the best part, a driver for each 14 LED pod is only $20 and a replacement LED is ~$6. What's even better, if you DIY the setup you can replace single bulbs, pick different lenses and set the bulb spacings to anything you want. Mixing and matching blue and white LED's also lets you customize the colour. I drilled the whole thing into a big heatsink (they do get hot) and hung it with stainless wire through holes I drilled in the heatsink fins.

A few PC fans mounted to the heatsink, and it stays quite cool, which might help with your overall temps a bit too.

 

[BrianOKC]

Everyone is LED crazy right now! The cost for him to upgrade to LED's on this big of a tank is going to cost a small fortune for a fixture. Let's say he does save $100 a month in electricity and $200 a year in bulb replacement. That's $1400 a year and it likely won't be this high. I'd think it would take 1-2 years to see a return on your money for the LED's. Then you have to hope the fixture doesn't have any problems over a saltwater environment and lasts another 1-2 years to see any savings. I don't know the warranties on these fixtures but there likely a year at best and probably not worth the piece of paper there written on.

So if the fixture lasts you 4-5 years you could see a big savings in electricity and bulb replacement if any shorter than that you will likely not save anything.

If he lived in California or some were electric was really high I could see the saving's adding up faster.

 

[phenom5]

The 400W MH, and the chiller jump out at me right away as the biggest energy hogs. No reason you can't step down to 250s, how tall is the the tank? 24"? Less $ to run those lights, and less heat...which as others mentioned, less chiller time. Bump it up to some high end reflectors (not sure what you are running), and you can run those 250's higher off the water...less heat transfer, maybe no more chiller at all.

You're return pump would probably be another place where you could find a more efficient alternative.

 

[zakk]

Everyone is LED crazy right now! The cost for him to upgrade to LED's on this big of a tank is going to cost a small fortune for a fixture. Let's say he does save $100 a month in electricity and $200 a year in bulb replacement. That's $1400 a year and it likely won't be this high. I'd think it would take 1-2 years to see a return on your money for the LED's. Then you have to hope the fixture doesn't have any problems over a saltwater environment and lasts another 1-2 years to see any savings. I don't know the warranties on these fixtures but there likely a year at best and probably not worth the piece of paper there written on.

So if the fixture lasts you 4-5 years you could see a big savings in electricity and bulb replacement if any shorter than that you will likely not save anything.

If he lived in California or some were electric was really high I could see the saving's adding up faster.

Cost for DIY for me, and this includes enough light for a 125gal, is ~$1000

He's likely spending that much on bulb replacement alone.

This includes:
80 CREE LED's
Heatsinks
Drivers
Lenses
Wiring
even the dimmer controller.
:thumbsup:

I will admit that the premade fixtures are a crazy price. I think I looked at one for my tank that was $2500 ish. The DIY just makes so much sense.

 

[sjm817]

As others have posted there is a lot of room for improvement.

Ditch the MH, T5s and do an LED setup
Ditch the chiller after you do the above
Replace the 70HP with a smaller external like a PCX40 if you want to stay with Gen-X

All this will take some up front costs. DIY LEDs if you are handy will help. You can sell off the stuff that comes off.

 

[Caesra]

I never have seen DIY as a good option for lighting. I have read time and time again from people doing a DIY on LEDs, that after time spent, learning curve, costs of mistakes, they might have bought the fixture. DIY on LEDs is just not the same as DIY on a kalk reactor. If you make minimum wage, it might pay off to do a DIY, but then again most making min wage are not going to be in this hobby long enough to pay for the LEDs anyways.

For the LED comparison, lets compare....I just feel as thought LEDs get too much hype, although I am sure in the long run they will save you a few bucks.

I am not going to even touch pros and cons of each, but I will use the fixture that seems to get the most positve ratings, the AI Sol. I do not know his exact dimensions, he says he is 200, so it is likely custom, so I will use 210g as a reference

Using AI Sols recommendations, for his tank he will need 6 unit kit, which costs $3300.

The power consumption per hour is 465. His MH is 800+ballast loss, so lets say 900.

So his difference is 365 per hour. I will use my electricity rate for comparison @ .13/KWh

So his total savings per month (assuming 10 hour day and full intesity) is $14.50. Not impressive to me at all. OK, yes you can add in bulbs, but likely you are going to have a module loss at some point over the many years it would take to recover the costs. Add in chiller? I have 3x250 MH and have absolutely no need for a chiller...one small clip on fan and keeping the room below the tank temp is all that is required. The tank is rock solid at 80 year round.

So for a grand total of $173/yr in electricity+bulbs he can have LED and save absolutely nothing. The ROI is not a year or two, it is many years.

I have run these numbers on my tank many times and the math just is not there.

Even using my DT tank as an example, 180g running 3x250w. Using same comparison.

3 unit kit $1700 using 810 and AI sol would use 228, a difference of 582 with a savings of $35.90 a month, it still would take me almost 4 years to recover the cost (not assuming bulb replacement, as I have a wild guess that bulb replacements equal out to module failures). Time will tell.

Even with these comparisons, as I mentioned before, there is absolutely no question that the tanks saved me almost $100 a month on my gas bill during the winter. I do not have a small, or poorly insulated house and my gas bills were $100 less (during deep winter months), with the heat kept higher in the house than the year previously...and it was much colder this year than last. That cost savings easily washes out any savings from the LED savings in electricity consumption.

I am just being a critic and I hope I have not offended anyone. The real math, for me, doesn't work out to the hype.

 

[muffe]

Solar panels. The government gives you a tax credit, so they're essentially free!

 

[sjm817]

Caesra you bring up some valid points. DIY is not for everyone, but many have dome very successful LED systems for a very reasonable price. There are sites that have easy to assemble kits that are not very difficult if you are handy.

I've made the point (not on this thread) several times on what you posted of the Winter heating. Yes, that is absolutely true. Your tank is a big space heater and no heat from it is "wasted" in the Winter months. The flip side is in the Summer months, you have to use electricity with your home air conditioning to remove that heat from your house. People in warm areas of the county always have to do this.

You have to carefully evaluate the entire picture what the electricity use will be and what the outlay costs are to make a change.

 

[Crusty Old Shellback]

Solar panels. The government gives you a tax credit, so they're essentially free!

Guess again.

I've looked into the solar pannel thing. After rebates, it will cost you about 30g's. Also unless you are way above the tier 2 level here in So Cal and can't lower it any, it's cheapier to buy from the power company than go solar. Best option is to do what was mentioned to lower your consumption.

I run up in teh tier 5 level right now. But by ditching my MH lights, changing my CL pumps and skimmer, I should be down barley in the tire 3 level which is less per Kwh than going solar.

 

[scuzy]

Ok my average electricity bill for my house used to be $350 a month. I was using 2 250watt mh, 4 x 56watt t5s for lighting. I have swapped to Maxspect LEDS for a grand total of only 340 watts lighting same lighting periods and i am now averaging $250 per month in electricity consumption. I do notice a big savings since i swapped to LEDs. some may not justify the ROI after seeing my bill at the $250 range for the last few months and not the usual $350-500 range i sure am glad i switched. This is taken from my PGE smart meter comparison to last years monthly averages.

 

[Paco]

What do you pay per kilowatt hour?

Go get yourself a meter like this, I got one from homedepot, different model but for $30 you can calculate what it is actually costing you.
http://www.p3international.com/products/special/p4400/p4400-ce.html

Plus you can use it to figure out if it is another appliance in your house that is creating that high electric bill...

My 70 gallon only costs me $20-25 a month. Paying .09 a kilowatt hour...

This is the first step -- don't just start spending money right and left to try to save money. You might be surprised at how little energy your tank is using compared to your A/C or water heater.

My 120 w/2x250 MH and no chiller (just fans, thanks) costs me a bit less than $30 per month. There's little I could do to lower that without spending so much money it'd take years to amortize it out.

 

[moonpod]

As noted previously the primary tank energy culprits are lighting, chiller and main pump. Solar tubes are a great way to go IF you can do that route. Many if not most cannot. LED seems to be an option that reduces light electrical consumption and also heat so it may allow you to ditch chiller. If you don't need that high powered return pump look into something more energy efficient and cool running. Some pumps despite being external still generate heat. If you are worried about reduced flow from your main pump tie it into a surge system and your flow worries will go away. This option may also allow you to get rid of vortech which doesn't add much heat but is a little bit of juice. course surge systems add bubbles noise and complexity to the system which can be a pain.

 

[RVANANO]

Great thread! I am currently dealing with the same issues. My last power bill was over $300!!

 

[zakk]

If anyone has any questions at all about the DIY LED, let me know. It's very very very basic wiring and soldering. I just don't want to be a shill for the company I got my LED kits from, so I'm not posting here.

I found a local buyer for my old light fixtures, which offset my total cost a fair bit. At the end of the day, It will cost me ~$700 to go from 760 watts down to 240 watts, and honestly, once you see the shimmer of LED, you won't go back.

The LFS has asked me to come in and give a demonstration on setting up the LED kits. I might do one for youtube. If you can hold a soldering pen, and s screwdriver, you're good to go.

I am looking forward to seeing what the result is on my monthly bill. Right now I'm on a 'budget' of $400 per month, some months over, some months under, but I'm really hoping to get down to $300 a month (our bill includes water in that number).

 

[RVANANO]

I am seriously considering doing just that^ Luckily I have the Giesemman infinity so I could probably still get about $800-$1k since it's still like new with brand new MH's.

 

[Caesra]

As noted previously the primary tank energy culprits are lighting, chiller and main pump.

Don't forget heaters, especially if they are fighting with your chiller to keep the temp constant.

Just one 250w heater fighting with your chiller is just like adding another MH + it is 24 hours a day, not 10 (or whatever your lighting schedule is).

 

[Old Gregg]

I'll repeat what everyone else said. Get LED lights

Basically next to nothing water consumption. No heat directed towards tank. No more chiller. No bulb replacements. It will pay for itself sooner or later

Oh and they look cool

 

[reefslugs]

I want to say thanks to all that have posted in. Normally when I start a new thread, not many people respond.

Any way, some questions have been ask about my tank. I'll try to remember them all. Number one my tank is not custom made. It is an old 200g Oceanic tank. It measures 7 foot long, 2 foot high and 2 food deep. I do not have any heaters. Also the hole solar power house thing is way out of the question.

Alot of people keep saying go with LEDs. I've stated before, from my resource her on RC, the amount of LED's it would take to satisfy my tank would consume just enough electricity that I am already using.

Now that you guy know what my tanks dimensions are. How many LED's would it take to light up my tank? What would it cost me to DIY? (I good at electrical) Also where is the best place to buy DIY LED's?

 

[dlp211]

I want to say thanks to all that have posted in. Normally when I start a new thread, not many people respond.

Any way, some questions have been ask about my tank. I'll try to remember them all. Number one my tank is not custom made. It is an old 200g Oceanic tank. It measures 7 foot long, 2 foot high and 2 food deep. I do not have any heaters. Also the hole solar power house thing is way out of the question.

Alot of people keep saying go with LEDs. I've stated before, from my resource her on RC, the amount of LED's it would take to satisfy my tank would consume just enough electricity that I am already using.

Now that you guy know what my tanks dimensions are. How many LED's would it take to light up my tank? What would it cost me to DIY? (I good at electrical) Also where is the best place to buy DIY LED's?

You have 2 x 400w MH and 4 x 54w T5. That's 1020w per hour. Even if you went heavy on LEDs and went with 1 per 12" of surface area that would work out to 168 LEDs @ 3w a piece that works out to 504w per hour.

Now lets assume 8 hours a day over 30 days at .13 a KWh thats 31.82 a month versus 15.78. Over a year that is a savings of 192.48. Go to 10 hours a day and your savings is 241 dollars. Now factor in bulb replacements. I don't know how much bulbs cost, but I know they are not cheap, so lets just say 200 dollars. So now your savings on 1 year is ballpark 400 dollars. Now how much can you get for your MH and T5 fixture, lets ballpark 400 so now you have saved/earned 800 over the whole year.

You could do this build for about 1300 so ROI is a little over 2 years not counting the savings from not running the chiller which a power hog. I also feel that 168 LEDs is overkill especially with the XPE and XPGs. Most people don't run their LEDs at full bore so once again even more savings.

You can do a 136 LED setup and have 1 LED per 15" of surface area which I feel is more then enough.