Going green

northbay-reefer

northbay-reefer

New member
I am picking up 3 Iwasaki 175 watt 15k eye 2 from Steve tomorrow, converting from 250 watt radium to 175 watt Iwasaki to save energy. The Iwasaki par is at 89 compare to the Radium par at only 66. Changing three bulbs, dialing down my lumatek from 250 to 175 I should be saving about 225 watt multiply by 8 hours/day I should save about 1.8 kilo watt a day. I can't wait.

I also cut out one of my 72" VHO and replace it with two 36" t5 to save about 90 watt at 10 hours a day .7 kilo watt a day

Total saving 2.5 kilo watt at $.39876/kilo watt = $1.00 per day = $365/year saving.

Now I have to look around and see what else I can cut :hmm2:
 
Sounds a lot like my setup . Tom I may have to file for copyright infringement . Now all you need are the lumenarc reflectors for the halides and the techII's for the t-5s (300%) multipler on output and your there. lol Don't fry your corals
 
Grant, I was the one reccomending the iwasaki to you remember? lol ... btw, I already have the luminarc III, maybe down the road I'll switch them out for the luminarc elite they are twice as efficient. I do have t5 blue plus and 1 VHO actinics. I can't wait to see what they look like in my tank.
 
I would be interested in bribing Ken into checking the par readings with his new par meter. I was referring to the lower wattage setup but higher output values I was getting even before I changed to the Iwasaki bulbs and regarding the bulbs, they may be too bright for me. I was considering going back to my 14k Ushios. A couple of my corals may be showing signs of light shock even with a shorter photo period but I'm going to wait a couple of weeks to see how things go. FYI we took some reading today and the tricolor Valida on the left side of my tank had a reading of over 800 on the par meter and thats at about 12" down from the lights as an example. However they may be perfect for you as your tank is deeper than mine. Good luck with the changes and let me know how things progress.
 
I have 2 Ice Cap 175 watt ballasts for sale if any of you need them

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Thanks guys but I got dial a watt lumatek so all I have to do is turn the knob.

The Iwasaki is burning a bit yellow still, I hope they will burn in soon. One of the bulb is showing a nice white color which is what I am hoping all three will look like. Other then that I can't believe how much brighter these bulbs are at 175 watt compare to the 250 watt radium.
 
After three days, the bulbs finally burned in and they are looking great. Much brighter than the radium 250 watt, I am begining to get use to the colors. I think I am going to keep them :D let's see how my coral react to the new lights.
 
Well, I have some good news. I noticed that the Lumatek is dimable, so I went home today and turn the wattage down to 150 watt from 175 watt, voila the color of the bulb is much better but is still brighter than my 250 watt Radium. I think I am going to love this set up and I am using less energy too.

The next thing I want to do is replace my main genx pump (90 watt) with the bubble bluster 5000 (60 watt) saving at least 30 watt/hour = 816 watt/day = 24.5 kilo watt/month
 
Sounds good Tom. This makes me feel a lot better about my duel 150s. I was debating on going with two 250 watt but didn't want to run a chiller. (Do you run one Tom? If so that will save you some money in the summer. Less watts =less heat. ) I've only been using my fixture for a month now and I have noticed some good growth on my lps on the sandbed. I'm excited to try some sps again. The only one that survived the change over to the bigger tank with underpowered lights was a montipora and it was so bleached that I thought it was dead but in the past two weeks I have seen some brown polyps come back and it is turning a very, very light green.
 
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Tom, I'm not sure your math is right. 30 watts / hour would be 30x24 = 720 watts / day *30 = 21.6 KW / month. Still in the general ballpark of your calculations.
 
northbay-reefer said:
Well, I have some good news. I noticed that the Lumatek is dimable, so I went home today and turn the wattage down to 150 watt from 175 watt, voila the color of the bulb is much better but is still brighter than my 250 watt Radium. I think I am going to love this set up and I am using less energy too.

The next thing I want to do is replace my main genx pump (90 watt) with the bubble bluster 5000 (60 watt) saving at least 30 watt/hour = 816 watt/day = 24.5 kilo watt/month
Click to expand...

Nice, good to hear. 175W are great savers and look very good IMO You reap the benefits of less heat and less energy. If you're smart about bulb choice you can get close to a 250W. Most people will go 20k with 250 and if you go to a 14k or even a 10k you can exceed 250's for par output. Can't wait to fire up my ushio 14k's!
 
As far as return pump is concerned. If I were you I'd go with and ehiem or a mag drive 5. You really don't need a whole lot of flow from your return pump if you have sufficient powerheads in the tank. It's actually better to have a slower flow rate going into your sump and returned to the tank. First, you will experience way less micro bubbles and second, it's better for the skimmer, media's, refugium because they can process the water more easily rather than it being turned over like no ones business. If you think about it your tank is skimming the waters surface 24/7..I'd say 300-500gph through the sump is more than adequate.
 
SaltwaterAdict said:
As far as return pump is concerned. If I were you I'd go with and ehiem or a mag drive 5. You really don't need a whole lot of flow from your return pump if you have sufficient powerheads in the tank. It's actually better to have a slower flow rate going into your sump and returned to the tank. First, you will experience way less micro bubbles and second, it's better for the skimmer, media's, refugium because they can process the water more easily rather than it being turned over like no ones business. If you think about it your tank is skimming the waters surface 24/7..I'd say 300-500gph through the sump is more than adequate.
Click to expand...

My filtration system is plumbed underneath the house into the garage so I have about 8 feet of head, an eheim or mag 5 is not going to cut it. a 1300 gph pump will give me about 700 gal/hr which is about right for my tank(it would be nice to get a little more because in the summer time when the chiller kick in the tank will cool down faster).

The buble bluster is running at 60 watt with 0 head so at 8 feet head it might be running at about 45 watt ( I hope ) my genx is rated at 130 watt but running with 8 feet head the wattage is about 90 watt. I think the head presure slows down the pump so it uses less power.
 
connected the halide to kill a watt today, at 175 watt setting the reading is 192 watt, at the 150 watt setting the reading is 160 watt, the difference is 32 watt per bulb.

Ken my methhhh was right with my thinking but my typing was not.... lol, 32watt x 8hr x 3bulbs=768watt/day * 30 = 23.04 k watt/mo thanks for pointing it out :D
 
Good job actually measuring the power consumption.

Sorry, I didn't mean to bust your chops over a minor difference.
 
northbay-reefer said:
My filtration system is plumbed underneath the house into the garage so I have about 8 feet of head, an eheim or mag 5 is not going to cut it. a 1300 gph pump will give me about 700 gal/hr which is about right for my tank(it would be nice to get a little more because in the summer time when the chiller kick in the tank will cool down faster).

The buble bluster is running at 60 watt with 0 head so at 8 feet head it might be running at about 45 watt ( I hope ) my genx is rated at 130 watt but running with 8 feet head the wattage is about 90 watt. I think the head presure slows down the pump so it uses less power.
Click to expand...

Interesting, yeah I've heard that before where if you throttle the pump back it will use less watts. Would it be possible to locate you sump underneath your tank? I used to have my sump plumbed into the basement. I had a massive pump rated at 145Ws, ever since I switched back I use a pump rated at 30W. If you have a ton of equipment like calcium reactor etc, I understand it may not be that easy, but may be something to look into.
 
I love having my sump/fuge/frag rack in the garage, I have tons of room to work with and water change is a breeze so that is the ideal set up for me. the pump head is only 7 feet so it's pretty normal. I also have calcium reactor, water top off, kalk reactor, dual media filter, chiller, a huge skimmer, and I also run ozone so I need to keep that away from human :D
 
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