Energy audit on tank

[Fishbulb2]

Hi Everyone,

Our electricity bill has been steadily increasing and is finally starting to irritate us. We've been looking at ways to cut down on energy usage and I thought I would look at the aquarium. I wanted to get some feedback if people had thoughts. The tank is 75g with a sump. This is the following equipment

Kessil AP700 lights
300W heater
2 tunze 6095s oscillating 30% to 100% each minute
Ecotech MP10
Scotch battery backup
Apex controller
Apple Airport wireless router to Apex
2 liter meters for auto water change
Apex DOS for Ca++ and Alk
Kalkstirrer from Avast
25W UV AquaUltraviolet
Drop Algae scrubber 1.4
Nyos 160
Ozotech 200
Ozotech air dryer (3 hrs per night to recharge)
CompactON 3000 (792 GPH) - Eheim return pump

I think that's it.

I hooked the whole tank to a Kill-a-watt meter and saw that it draws about 250 Watts or so on average when the lights are on and the heater is off. The heater kicks it up to a little over 500W. At night the tank goes down to about 150W or so. In total the tank has used 25.85 kWH in 95 hours and 28 minutes. I can't quite tell if that's a lot or reasonable. I tried to select equipment that was pretty efficient. One thought that I had was lowering the temp of the tank to save energy. Right now it is set to range between 76 and 77. If I lowered it one degree, maybe the heater would run a lot less, but I'm not sure if it's safe to run at 75 degrees. I'd love to hear some thoughts.

Cheers,
FB

 

[Daddi0]

Our electric supplier has peak and non-peak rates. I changed my lighting to non-peak hours and saved some money.
Cheers! Mark

 

[Fishbulb2]

Frustrating that ours does not provide that. It's strange. It seems so logical.

 

[cody6766]

I think you're probably working around your best return on investment. I'm sure you could find a more efficient pump or widget here an there, but I bet the cost of replacement won't pay out for quite a long time. If you drop your temp 1 degree you probably won't kill everything, but you'll be running at the lower extreme. Will it matter? maybe not, or maybe so. A degree lower could mean nothing. It could also put some or all of your coral living at the lower extreme of what they're able to tolerate, possibly giving them no room to absorb a swing in another parameter. Please don't think that I"m saying that that's how it is...I'm just playing Devil's advocate.
If the reef is running near the lowest possible temp, there's a chance that it's doing it at the expense of flexibility somewhere else. Let's say the corals are hanging on at 75 degrees. A swing in Alk or some other parameter that may have been inconsequential at 77 degrees could be problematic at 75 degrees. Again, I have nothing to substantiate this. I'm just bringing it up to address the possibility that the reduction in buffer in one parameter could translate to the reduction of buffer in another. It also may not.
I'd say try it, unless you have thousands of dollars invested in corals. If you do try it, try to keep all of the testable parameters as stable as possible for several weeks to see if the temp reduction is responsible for any detrimental or beneficial tank effects.

Bottom line: If you're going to change one parameter, make sure the others are damned stable so you don't assign blame in error.

 

[Daddi0]

Instead of just focusing only on saving energy on the reefs (4), we went through the whole house. Installed LEDs throughout, turned the fridge up a degree or 2, unplugged a bunch of "phantom " power devices, shortened washer/dryer cycles, turned the water heater down a bit, etc.. With all we did our total energy usage is about equal to what we were using before we had reef tanks.

 

[Conor_K]

Frustrating that ours does not provide that. It's strange. It seems so logical.

You don't want time of use, trust me. Thier off peak charges are probably similar to your current charges. Thier on peak charges will make you sick.

Based on the numbers so far your tank is probably costing you $30/month or less. Not sure if that makes you feel better or worse...

After you get a larger data set on the tank I would definitely recommend moving the meter around. I bet there are more offensive circuits in the house that could save you some $$ without breaking the bank.

Cfl/led lighting is always a great place to start.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

 

[FullBoreReefer]

250w/500w isn’t bad, Hell im up around 1000w on average.

 

[Green Chromis]

250w/500w isn't bad, Hell im up around 1000w on average.

:fish1: I wish I could run my system on a 1000 watts, your wattage is less then the amount my lights use. :fish1:

 

[FullBoreReefer]

:fish1: I wish I could run my system on a 1000 watts, your wattage is less then the amount my lights use. :fish1:

Your system is about 3x mine!!! Haha

 

[Desert Sea]

I wouldn't stop your audit at the aquarium. Check the rest of your home. Have you changed out any appliances lately? Do you run a dehumidifier? Believe it or not dehumidifiers use a lot of energy. Any chance someone left the attic lights on by mistake? There's a bunch of other variables beside the tank that could be driving your useage up.

 

[Green Chromis]

Your system is about 3x mine!!! Haha

:fish1:Very true, but I am switching out my M/H's and VHO lights to the Mitra LX 7206 LED lights, which should put a big dent in the wattage used, as it will dramatically reduce the Temps in my aquarium and fish room, thus causing the chiller to run less, and the fish room A/C to run less. :fish1:

 

[brian3]

I don't have a heater, drops to 70-72 in the winter, still growing hard coral like crazy. I lowered the reef breeder LED lights back to 35% a couple years ago and now get better color than when set at 50%+. More light is not always better. I also drop the flow way down once the lights go off, probably only draw 50 watts once the lights are off. Sure beats the 3 x 250 watt MH lights I had 6 years ago, plus the color now just does not compare. Tank has been running 20 years.

 

[FSJGUY]

I have 8 fish tanks.. each one uses like 100-300w and i usually have about 6 lava lamps running using 40w bulbs and my gaming pc so imagine my electric bill lol.

Its like 200 a month or so

 

[FSJGUY]

Most LEDS tbh dont use much less power then T5s.. i have plenty of led lights... my recent beamsworks light 2x 36inch lights for my 135g tank use 50 watts of power each .50w per led.. a 4 bulb T5 normal outout fixture uses only 20 watts more...

 

[Kevin Guthrie]

I keep getting those energy usage reports from the local Edison, and it always looks like "efficient homes similar to yours: 60; average homes similar to yours, 120; your global warming grand prize: 220."

All I can think of is get some pink foam insulation sheeting from your local big box, cut it, and tape the pieces:
to the back of the tank.
under the tank to the underside of the top of the stand.
under your sump.
cover half your sump top.

Of course in the summer you'll have to remove it all.

 

[Daddi0]

I keep getting those energy usage reports from the local Edison, and it always looks like "efficient homes similar to yours: 60; average homes similar to yours, 120; your global warming grand prize: 220."

All I can think of is get some pink foam insulation sheeting from your local big box, cut it, and tape the pieces:
to the back of the tank.
under the tank to the underside of the top of the stand.
under your sump.
cover half your sump top.

Of course in the summer you'll have to remove it all.

Thats what I did with my reefs. I was on the tiered rate structure and was getting warnings that I had exceeded the 4th tier. I have 4 tanks in the garage and it gets down to about 39 degrees out there. I made some plastic hooks for the sheeting on the front and sides to make them easily removable
Cheers! Mark

 

[Green Chromis]

Most LEDS tbh dont use much less power then T5s.. i have plenty of led lights... my recent beamsworks light 2x 36inch lights for my 135g tank use 50 watts of power each .50w per led.. a 4 bulb T5 normal outout fixture uses only 20 watts more...

:fish1: It's not the power that LED's use, it's the heat generated, from the T5 and M/H bulbs that cause the problem. If you live in a warm climate, you probably need a chiller for your system, and unless your chiller is plumbed outside, the heat from the chiller will increase the amount of time your A/C runs, thus increasing your electric bill. Don't for get about changing you T5 bulbs every 6 to 9 months, or your M/H bulbs every 9 to 12 months, that can be a hefty penny every year depending on the amount of bulbs you have. :fish1:

 

[travis32]

I have a 400 gallon reef system with lights, a 300 watt heater and a 400 watt backup heater all tied into the Apex to manage my temp, I was keeping the tank around 78-78.2. I lowered it today to 76.8 -77.0 My heaters were running a lot and at 700 watts of combined heating, that's a lot of electricity. Raised my Electric bill from around $200 in the winter (gas heat and gas is a separate bill) to around $300 in the winter. A near $100 a month increase for the tank. I can't say it's just the tank though as my wife is working from home more, so that means an additional computer plugged in all day, 2 monitors for her plugged in all day. Additional lights, cooking appliances, phone charging etc.

So, although I think the tank is probably around $50 -60 a month to run, I would look at other things. Everything draws power even when off.

Xbox, computers with batteries, mobile phone power cords draw power even when not plugged into phones.... TVs, Alexa's, Google Home / Mini, lights throughout the house, etc. There's a ton of draws in the house.

I had seen power strips that actually shut the power off if it detected that the device was no longer charging or using a significant power drain. Smart Strips or something like that, but, what you pay in the power strip... could be a couple years of a cord plugged in not charging anything.