After setting up my reef tank I've been replacing incandescents like crazy around the house, the spiral type flourescents consume 14 watts compred to a 60 watt light bulb, considering around 300W of lighting on your tank it doesnt take much swapping out bulbs in rooms where lights are on constantly to offset and even reduce consumption around pre-tank values.
I installed an attic vent for the summer, I picked up a powered version with a thermostat and this alone has reduced the amount of time the air conditioner is on, it used to run almost constant on hot days, now it doesnt.
Have someone service your AC unit for the home, clean the grill!! even so little as blowing out the exchanger grills will help to improve efficiency of home AC, this goes same for chillers, a dusty chiller cant exchange heat as efficiently.
Take a good look at
Realgoods
These guys have been around for ages, and have some excellent products from simple small here and there items to full on off grid systems.
Using an UPS system on my tank has helped to condition power, AC electronics run better when the sine wave is balanced, without getting too technical having conditioned power increases lifespan of electronics, reduces extra energy consumption, and as an added bonus, will keep your tank from having problems in brownout / blackout situations. I use two 1000VA APC models on my tank. I test them monthly during one of my regular scheduled tank maintenance days and have had no problems with power at the tank. Some models are smart enough to tell you what your consumption is per outlet, you can then compare pump usage, etc.
I dont run a chiller, we like to keep the house cool and thus my heaters typically run more often, by changing my refugium lighting from flourescent and incandescent to Halogen I've actually been able to reduce heater use, and the macro grows like crazy, a 5 pack of 15 watt halogen disc's goes for around $30 at home depot. Mount these around your fuge for better performance.
I built a back panel to my stand to close off the huge hole, this keeps light from peeking into my display at night as well keeps the fuge a little more protected, I've noticed less evaporation and better temp control with this. Once again since the room is kept around 68 I havent had to use a chiller but this gives me a nice closed area where I can use small fans to cool at a later time if needed.
The window / skylight / sunlight peice I wish I could do, I have even thought about using mirrors. Nothing compares to the sun in ways of wattage and natural spectrum and it's just quite simply a brilliant idea. I wish more shops such as marinedepot and such would market items in this area, I'm certain there are tons of people out there who could use this as a viable solution and have no idea that it is!
One of the most interesting places where i think possibilities lie and where we as aquarists tend to be short anyhow is that of flow, not many of us (myself included) are exactly up on fluid dynamics. By properly placing the outputs of our closed loops, powerheads, etc. we can reduce the sizes and amount of pumps / powerheads used. As well as provide better flow... theres an interesting thought that might just require it's own thread... any fluid dynamics geniouses out there?
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